Selection
by T.J.98
Summary: In order to cope with the genetic stagnation facing their population, the District 13 high command took drastic measures. As a result, several people from the various districts of Panem have been abducted and held prisoner. Unlikely connections will be formed, as the prisoners struggle to hold on to what hope they have left.
1. Chapter 1:Abducted

A man lurks in the woods, hiding. His hands are clammy as he hunts his human prey. Now it was all or nothing, he could not afford to let his prey discover his presence. Not until it was too late for his prey.

He spent the last eight months trying his best to remain inconspicuous, to be but a shadow at night, a coal miner or peacekeeper in day. To be someone that you could pass on the street and completely forget the moment he is out of your sight. Getting past the electric fence and into the District was the easy part; if you think that is hard, try remaining unnoticed for almost a whole year.

His camouflage is designed so accurately that not even the animals notice where he is. It was not designed to remain unseen in the woods: it was designed specifically for District 12s woods! It was designed to the smallest detail to grant near invisibility. The ability to fool even nature was also in part thanks to the serum now flowing through his blood that utterly prevents his body from secreting any odor, stench, musk, or smell.

The operative did not know from the start he was destined for the work he was selected for at the age of fourteen, and trained for until the age of twenty eight. It was not until after he was specially chosen by his training officer to be moved from regular training to his current field that he knew the one one thing that would remain constant:He was ready for the life of a covert operative. Once the operative graduated from military academy with flying colors, he got to request his field.

While fresh graduates are allowed to request what mission they are sent on, there is nothing preventing their superiors from ignoring them. The operatives was always one to take the hard way out when given the choice, so it is no wonder that he turned away he possibility of comfortably spying on his fellow comrades in the domestic operations force. He had the skill and competence to back up his desire to preform in the highest risk unit, so his request was not ignored. He is in District 12, as apposed to District 2 or the Capitol, because the higher ups wanted him to test the water, and that is why he is nervous.

The operative knew that if he blew this one chance, he would never get another one. His record would be sullied, and he would be forced to work in the Domestic operations force. All his training at the most cutthroat military Academy in his district, working hard to not only pass but to be at the top of his class, all of it will be wasted if he fails his first mission.

For the first two months here, he worried that he would not be able to find a candidate suitable for selection. He took secret blood samples of anyone who looked promising, but it was slow work. The mobile DNA scanner he brought with him is only able to synthesize six samples at a time, so he was basically taking shots in the dark.

In an over ambitious and objectively foolhardy move, the operative snuck into the Justice Building several times and digitally copied documents of the citizens. He hoped to find some useful information in the tessare records, only to find to his dismay that the District 12 Headpeacekeeper and Mayor have long since neglected their populations genetic records and allowed them to become out of date.

The operative almost began to dread his first four month report, as he would have to admit having gotten nowhere. Then he got a stroke of luck.

With two months to go before his first report, he found a perfect candidate for selection. First of all, the candidate he found matched all required traits: a female between the age of sixteen and twenty, no genetic disorders, no health problems, and with genes sharing no more than fifty percent similarity with the average District 13 genes. After being ordered to wait four more months and carry out further investigation, he discovered more traits about the candidate he selected that practically make her too good a candidate to exist. She illegally hunted, ensuring that she is unaffected by the lung problems that afflict District 12's population as well as insuring she has a healthy diet. She even hunts on a regular schedule, in the part of the woods in the general direction of District 13.

The operative now was finally ready to complete his mission, his sole reason for being in District 12 for eight long months. He had had several close calls, and even had to murder, dismember, and bury in the woods a man who caught him sleuthing. In his hands was clasped a high strength stealth handgun capable of firing high strength sedatives at seven yards away. Now he waits.

The prey then came into view, a bow in her right hand and a quiver of arrows on her back. She raised her bow, notched an arrow into place, and took aim. The arrow flew over the head of the operative and struck a barred owl through the chest. Though the operative did not turn around, he suspected the barred owl would fall backward before landing upon the forest floor below. He was right, it did.

The operative now had his turn to take aim. He pulled the trigger, and the sedative needle bullet hit its mark. The prey felt the needle bullet hit her shoulder, her eyes widened. While she tried hard not to drop her bow, the sedative did what it was designed to do and she fell unconscious.

The operative, no longer needing to be hidden, stood up. He pulled the now empty needle bullet out of the prisoners shoulder, and hoisted her over his. He picked up her bow with his other hand, so as not to leave any evidence. He headed to a clearing eight miles into the woods, one where a hovercraft would take him and the prisoner back to District 13.


	2. Chapter 2:Doctors

The doctor walked down the isle of glass cells, headed to one has not yet been questioned. Cell 38; the occupants of cell 1 through 37 belonged to had already been examined by either himself or another doctor.

Dr. Aurelia's shift ended some hours ago, and he was asleep I his apartment room now. The two doctors were probably more different personality wise than a any other two people. The only reason they had any contact at all is because they both happened to work in District 13 medical practice.

Unlike Dr. Aurelia, this forty nine year old senior doctor was a man with balding grey hair, who seemed friendly to those who did not know him personally. When he smiled, he showed his white teeth. He wore a white lab coat, and always carried a recording device in his pocket. His chocolate eyes gleamed with a greed for knowledge and, more importantly, ways to exploit that knowledge for his personal gain.

It seems the ration system did not grind his teeth down to nubs like it did so many others, nor did his body have the malnourished appearance many others native to District 13 had. This is odd if the rations are really distributed equally and without favoritism as the ration distributors claim.

Behind him walked three junior doctors, and behind them were twelve interns. Like the doctor, they had all labored over research and graduated with high qualifications. While some were like the Doctor and looked forward to a cushy job and good food, others intended to use their medical knowledge to help people. Upon receiving the mandatory request to join the District 13 Ministry of Eugenics and Genetic Intervention, they were told by the District 13 high command that, rather than help one patient at a time, they would get to help the population of whole district. Sometimes the line between help and hindrance gets blurry or outright crossed, especially when people take it upon themselves to be in charge of who lives and who dies.

The doctor entered cell 38, the junior doctors and interns waited outside the wall of one way glass that allowed for them to observe the patient without being observed back. They took notes while the senior doctor asked the patient a few questions.

While the still surprised patent evaluated the doctors appearance to gauge from district patterns where she was, the doctor patiently sat down on a chair.

"Where am I?"

The doctor smiled; he loved it when patients squirmed with confusion. It gave him a sense of power over his test subjects.

"My name is Dr. Joseph Kurtz, and I will be asking the questions. What is your name?"

The dark haired patient, who was dressed in a light grey hospital gown and who's skin had a much healthier color than the sickly pastiness that is the norm in District 13, did not answer. As to why she did not trust Dr. Kurtz, it is safe to say that she connected two and two together as to how Kurtz might be connected to her abduction.

"We can only properly help you if you are willing to cooperate. Now, what is your name?"

Realizing that she needed to figure out the details of her imprisonment, and that the questions might hint or reveal details, she answered. "Katniss Everdeen."

Dr. Kurtz pulls out a small glass tablet, the size of a pocket book and rectangular shaped, It was a recording device he always carried. While he activated the recorder before walking in, he wanted to be sure it was working. These tablets are normally reserved for field research, or instances too messy for paper, but carried a personal one around. Sure enough, the glass recorded the words of their conversation with the 99.99999999% accuracy it is built for. Not a single mistake. When flicked the 'page' on the tablet to the right, the conversation now only took up the bottom half of the tablet, and the top half showed just a small portion of such information as could be acquired by blood sample.

Dr. Kurtz continued, "Now, to the closest known detail, when were you born?

While others native to the Seam would have struggled or outright been unable to answer this question, Katniss was lucky in this respect. Despite the statistic unlikelyhood, Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen expected both children to live to adulthood. The fact that her father both a coal miner and a hunter increased the likelihood of Katniss and her sister falling into the 50% of District 12 children who lived to adulthood.

"May eight, year fifty eight."

"That makes you sixteen years of age?"

"Yes"

Since District 13 had the same calendar as the rest of Panem, Dr. Kurtz did not need to translate. While District 13 and the Capitol have the same calendar, they have different reasons behind it. The Capitol believed that its victory over the Dark Days Rebellion began a new era, and that in starting the Hunger Games tradition, they were giving civilization a fresh start. District 13 on the other hand, believed that year zero marks the Capitols withdraw from their lands. Since Dr. Kurtz does not need to translate between timekeepings, he went right to the next question.

"What is your Sexual orientation?"

This seemed like an oddly personal question, but she still answered. "strait"

While she gave a clear answer, that particular slang word was one of the ones no longer practiced in District 13. The simple fact is that a populations language is going to differ from the norm if they are isolated underground for nearly four score years.

Dr. Kurtz tried his best to clarify but did not hide the frustration in his voice, "Are you heterosexual or homosexual?"

Despite the abysmal state of the District 12 school system, Katniss still had a basic understanding of what those two terms mean. "Heterosexual"

"Good, replacements are not easy to get."

The reason he said it was because having too many of the breeding stock transferred to human experimentation reflected poorly in reports. In accordance with the procreation laws of District 13, those deemed genetically, physically, or mentally unfit are considered 'life unworthy of life'. For the first forty years of District 13s independence, their response to bisexuality, homosexuality, and asexuality was to simply assure the public that such people do not exist in District 13, and to privately tell such individuals to keep it to themselves and procreate despite any qualms. However, a theory of sexual orientation being genetically hereditary resulted in a new policy: individuals listed above are now deemed genetically unfit. While their fate is never discussed, it is needless to say that the crematorium is always busy and that human experimentations always have a steady supply of test subjects.

Dr. Kurtz continued, "Do you know why you are here?"

Katniss resisted the urge to tell him that of corse she does not fucking know why she is here, she simply shook her head.

"If you turn out to be worth the risk getting you here, and worthy of staying here, then you will find out. Dr. Aurelia will visit you tomorrow morning for the physiological evaluation. I suggest you catch up on sleep before then."

Dr. Kurtz was about to leave the cell, but before he did he turned around. "And Ms. Everdeen, enjoy your stay."


	3. Chapter 3:More doctors

Dr. Aurelius walked down the isle, before entering cell 23 for psychiatric assessment.

Dr. Aurelius has always had a desire to learn and research, but no subject allured him more than the study of he mind. While he dabbled in neurology, Dr. Aurelius was desired more to find out what makes people think the way they do. A stout, bald, near sighted man, he was not fit for the army and barely scored a passing grade in the. mandatory training classes. He wore a light grey labcoat, as well as spectacles to help him see. He legitimately wanted to help people. Seeing the ... unorthodox ... treatment of patents really upset Dr. Aurelius, but he was for the most part unable to change that.

He sat down in a chair facing the hospital bed of a very hostile patient. Despite the fact that the only thing preventing the monstrously strong patient from decapitating him are the restraining agents that flow from the various plastic tubes into the patients bloodstream, Dr. Aurelius talked to him as though he were an equal.

"Hello, I do not believe we have formally met. What might your name be?"

Despite the restraining agents preventing him from moving his body beyond shifting his weight, the patient was still able to talk just fine. "Fuck. Off."

"I see that you do not trust me yet-"

The golden haired patient interrupted him. "I wonder why that might be? Maybe it has something to do with you kidnapping me."

"To show you I desire no bad blood, I will tell you my name first. My name is Doctor Maxwell Aurelius."

Dr. Aurelius waited patiently for the ten minutes before the patient was willing to speak. When the patient said the few short words that answered the question, Dr. Aurelius considered the ten minute wait well worth it.

"My name is Cato Hardley."

"Would you rather I call you by your first name or your last?"

Cato was silent, but he glared at Dr. Aurelius in a way that dared him to speak to him on a first name basis.

Dr. Aurelius took out a personal notebook and wrote down notes on his patient. He liked old fashioned recording methods because it is not possible to hack a book.

"Do you have any family members or close friends whom you consider family?"

Cato thought about any way in which these people, whoever they are, could exploit this. Upon finding none, he answered the question.

As Cato spoke, he scowled at the idea of never seeing them again "I have both my parents, one grandparent, and a cousin."

Good, thought Dr. Aurelius, progress is being made. "Okey, tell me, what is life like in District 2?"

Still on a surly temperament, Cato said, "No, I won't tell you about home when this room is bugged. You're going to use what I say against me if I reveal anything about myself you people don't like. I'm not stupid."

No he was not, that much is true. Even if he had no way of knowing, his paranoia is actually justified. District 13 really is bugged. While they have only been able to place security cameras in every hallway and public room, the District 13 Ministry of Security certainly has bugged every private room. It seemed that only privacy to be had in District 13 was the in the confines of the mind.

Dr. Aurelius was not about to lie to the patient and tell him otherwise. He was honestly surprised that this one still had fight left in him. While on one hand it made his job harder, Dr. Aurelius was secretly pleased to see that this one did not give up yet.

* * *

><p>Following an uneventful psychiatric assessment of Cato, during which the patient divulged no personal information, he headed over to his next appointment in cell 38.<p>

Inside, he found someone very different from Cato. In call 38, the patient he met with next was still hostile, but not at violent as Cato and did not require restraining agents.

"Hello, my name is Doctor Maxwell Aurelius. What is might your name be?"

While Katniss was not blunt like Cato, she still wanted nothing to do with the people of this District 13. She did not even know which district she was in, if any. She is able to guess that she is not in the Capitol, as all the natives she met so far have been plainly dressed even for the districts.

"Didn't Kurtz tell you what my name is?"

"Yes, but I feel it is more polite to hear it from you before calling you by it."

Despite being satisfied with the answer Dr. Aurelius provided, Katniss was still on the lookout for deception.

"I'm Katniss Everdeen."

"It is a pleasure to meet you. Do you want me to call you anything specific?"

Katniss shook her head, she was still suspicious.

"Do you have any immediate living family members?"

This hits a sore spot so hard, Dr. Aurelius might as well have slapped her in the face.

"Why does that matter?"

"Well, it will help me get to know you better. I am going to be your psychiatrist after all."

"My mother and my sister."

"Okey, what was life like in District 12?"

"It is my home." The fact that she said this in the present tense, and with a voice of unmasked hostility, made Dr. Aurelius decide to consider a second approach.

"I sense you do not trust that I am working in your best interest, and I don't blame you. While I _am_ working with your best interest in mind, I would not trust someone I just met either. How about this: for the rest of the session, you can ask me questions. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability."

Dr. Aurelius still worked in the best interest of his patients, and honored his Hippocratic oath over his oath of loyalty. While the other doctors accepted that they were not expected to take the oath seriously, and that to the District 13 government it was just a meaningless graduation ceremony, Dr. Aurelius kept the oath even when it meant going against the will of his leaders. He did not believe that any life was unworthy of life.

Katniss decided to get some information on what happened to her. "Okey, where am I?"

"You are in District 13. More specifically, you are in sector 15 of floor 62."

This answer only raised several more questions. "I thought District 13 was destroyed."

"It only moved underground, but the surface part was destroyed and the three quarters of the dark days population that were not able to enter the underground complex perished."

"Why didn't the Capitol finish off the survivors?"

"From what I was taught, the Capitol does not know there are any survivors."

"Why am I here?"

This is where Dr. Aurelius was stumped. He had direct orders to only reveal the nature of this program after they have passed in all fields. "I promised I would answer all questions, but ... that question is better left for ... a more appropriate setting."

Translation: the room is bugged.

Katniss seemed to understand. "Okey, then, when can I leave."

The distress in his voice shows quite clearly that Dr. Aurelius does not approve of the measures District 13 is taking to refresh its gene pool. "You can leave this cell after the first round of tests. If you are asking when you can return to District 12; unfortunately you will not be granted permission from authority holders to leave District 13."

This did not sit well with Katniss.

She only stopped screaming and swearing in anger when her throat became sore. Dr. Aurelius did not interrupt her once, nor did his facial expressions show if he was even slightly fazed.

All he said was that, if she did not want to talk, she could fill out a form of the barest information needed. They could continue talking at the next mental evaluation. She nodded, indicating she agreed.

He handed her a clipboard with a sheet of the bare amount of information required. She filled out most of the medical.

The answered sheet went as followed.

**Please fill this sheet out to the best of your ability.**

**1. Do you suffer from chronic or recurring illness or pain?**

**Yes[ ]**

**No[X]**

**2. Does your family have a history of mental or physical disorder?**

**Yes[ ]**

**No[X]**

**3. Does your family have a history of substance abuse or inbreeding?**

**Yes[ ]**

**No[X]**

**4. How often, if ever, do you abuse narcotic substances?**

**Never[X]**

**0-5 times a year[ ]**

**10-15 times a year[ ]**

**0-5 time every six months[ ]**

**0-5 times every month[ ]**

**10-15 times a month[ ]**

**over 15 times a month[ ]**

**many times in the past year have you had any sexual encounters?**

**Never[X]**

**0-5 times a year[ ]**

**10-15 times a year[ ]**

**0-5 time every six months[ ]**

**0-5 times every month[ ]**

**10-15 times a month[ ]**

**over 15 times a month[ ]**

**6. In how many of the above mentioned encounters did your partner(s) have sexually transmittable diseases or venereal diseases?**

**Does not apply[X]**

**Never[ ]**

**0-5 times a year[ ]**

**10-15 times a year[ ]**

**0-5 time every six months[ ]**

**0-5 times every month[ ]**

**10-15 times a month[ ]**

**over 15 times a month[ ]**

**7. What is your sexual orientation?**

**Heterosexual[X]**

**Homosexual[ ]**

**Bisexual[ ]**

**Asexual[ ]**

**Unsure[ ]**

**8. How many times have you gotten sick with cold, seasonal influenza (flu), or other minor sickness in the last year?**

**Never[ ]**

**0-5 times a year[X]**

**10-15 times a year[ ]**

**0-5 time every six months[ ]**

**0-5 times every month[ ]**

**10-15 times a month[ ]**

**over 15 times a month[ ]**

**9. How many times have you gotten measles, whopping cough, life threatening influenza (flu), small pox, or other major or life threatening sicknesses in the last year?**

**Never[X]**

**0-5 times a year[ ]**

**10-15 times a year[ ]**

**0-5 time every six months[ ]**

**0-5 times every month[ ]**

**10-15 times a month[ ]**

**over 15 times a month[ ]**

**10. Do you have any handicaps, disabilities, or deformities? If so, list them below.**

**No [X]**

**Yes[ ] _**

Once she finished filling out the sheet of paper, Katniss handed it, along with clipboard and pen, back to Dr. Aurelius. He nodded, and said thank you. It looks like another patient had not yet given up hope.


	4. Chapter 4:Taking a look inside

Right now, Katniss is lying down machines they have never seen before, waiting for the neurologist to tell them that they are done Neuro-imaging. Cato is waiting his turn, and will receive this next.

The neurologist was Dr. Franklin Olybrius, a fifty three year old man with a thin light-black hair. The only thing about him that was not plain in appearance was his left hand, which was missing the last three digits. Dr. Olybrius was an honest man, and professional. He worked not only with the new breeding stock, but also with the various District 13 people who were deemed important enough for their medical requests to be granted. He was currently well known in District 13s neurological community for his theory that chemicals in the human brain have an affect on how people feel emotionally. He receives notoriety for never commenting on Eugenics. He also has a secret that could get him in trouble if it is found out; the thing he is hiding is actively discouraged in District 13 society, and he has not even told his beloved wife of this secret.

As Katniss lies on her back, wearing only her hospital gown, the machine she is intakes pictures of her head. Dr. Olybrius gave instructions.

"Now hold your breath until I tell you its okey to breath."

Katniss held her breath, wondering if she would suffocate. She heard the flash of a camera. "Okey, now breath regularly."

She opened her mouth and let air flow down her throat and into her lungs. Soon, the metal board she was lying on began to slide out of the machine. She assumed it was safe to get off, and sat up.

Dr. Olybrius turned on the screen that was mounted on the wall, and it showed a black and white picture of something that can only be described as a tangled mesh of meat tubes.

"This is your brain. Encase you can not tell, it is working without any problems." Dr. Olybrius then began to bore her with the details of what each part of the brain was and what it did. Despite the best education District 12's barley functioning school system had to offer, Katniss did not know enough about the subject to know what Dr. Olybrius was describing to her.

"I'm sorry, this is probably going over your head, isn't it?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I only began to understand after studying for decades, I can't expect everyone to be an expert at this. And besides, there are many others who are experts at things I know next to nothing on. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself."

He then wrote down something in a piece of paper, and handed it to a boy in grey scrubs. The boy had curly red hair, and a freckled face; he could not be much older than eighteen.

"Felix, please take this to the sector chief of medicine."

Katniss asked, "What was that?"

"Its a request for new light fixtures, the ones in here are shorting too often. Now, remember to get regular excessive, eat all your rations, and drink plenty of water, and your mental health should be fine. Try to avoid hitting your head against anything, or ingesting any hazardous material."

With that, Katniss passed the neurological evaluation. She is safe, for now.

* * *

><p>While Dr. Olybrius is doing this, another doctor is doing a little research of his own. Dr. Kurtz is standing to the side of the concrete slab used for an operating table. The occupant of the table tries in vain to shake free of his bindings. The slab was stained dark red, almost black, with blood that had dried long ago. Even more blood was spilled onto the floor, leaving it with several coats of sickening red. The room was lit with fluorescent light, just like every other room in the district; only these lights were flickering and some were out. The room was dimly lit.<p>

The name of the occupant is no longer important, it is just a meaningless arrangement of letters. What is important is that the occupant was a hard working man, and a loving husband. He was thirty two years old, and has until recently been cheery and kind even to people he was not fond of. However, none of this mattered to the Ministry of Eugenics and Genetic Intervention; all that mattered to them was that this man was sterile from birth.

Dr. Kurtz looked into the eyes of the man; the mans eyes were wide with mortal terror. The man could not speak, as one restraint covered his mouth, but he did make muffled screams. Even if anyone could hear his muffled screams through the soundproofed walls of the room, the guards outside the door will just tell anyone who passed that he was being given a life saving surgical operation. It requires amazing talent to lie so blatantly.

Dr. Kurtz walled calmly over to the table that contained the various assortments of surgical equipment and cutters. He picked up an electric rotation cutter, and powered it on. The blade spinner rotated wit. Such speed that it could cut copper easily. In his other hand, he pulled out a pair of rusty, unsterilized forceps.

Dr. Kurtz walked up to his victim, and looked him in the eyes.

"I am going to dissect you. It is going to hurt."

Dr Kurtz looked into his victims eyes, gaining an intense thrill from watching the mortal terror of his victim. Dr. Kurtz smiled; he loved being the master of life and death. The horrified screams were like music to him.

If only it could be said that Dr. Kurtz did not go through with the dissection, that this was his first and that he did not do the same to hundreds in the past, or even that he was the only doctor to preform operations similar to this. If only this could be said without being a lie.

It is needless to say that these little ... procedures ... are kept secret from the general public. The mans wife will probably be told that while receiving a surgery that would return his fertility, the mans heart gave out. Dr. Kurtz will might even give the new widow the news himself, claiming to have done all he could for the man. The randomly mixed ashes of the various depositories of the crematorium will then be given to the widow, stored in an urn of hard plastic, which will bare the mans name and dates of birth and death.


	5. Chapter 5:Human Husbandry

Katniss, Cato, and the one hundred and seventy two patients who were selected spent next few days being physically evaluated by an assortment of doctors with various different specialties. Audiologists, Andrologists, Gynecologists, Epidemiologist, Dentists, Immunologists, Ophthalmologists, and too many other types of doctors to name here. While Katniss and Cato both passed the evaluations, it is needless to say that not everyone did.

Originally, there were two hundred patients, taken from not only the twelve districts but also from various nation across the globe, and they expected at least half of those to be defective. The Ministry of Eugenics and Genetic Intervention never took more than four people from the same place, and they never took anyone famous or important; they wanted to remain hidden from public knowledge. For this reason, and so as to allow the builders and diggers enough time to construct the necessary living quarters. Space is of no issue, as District 13 can just dig down and out. Resources are of no issue, as the District 13 government has ways of acquiring from abroad what they can not produce themselves.

After the remaining one hundred and twenty three passed the medical evaluation, they now had to wait. They all waited, dressed in District 13 civilian uniforms in the announcement hall that sector 15, all the other sectors, has reserved for itself.

The person addressing the genetic imports from atop a podium is Floor Manager Aronovich Malenkov. Malenkov was a cold, calculating person. With a slightly overweight stomach,one would make the mistake of thinking that the ration system is not entirely fair. One would also not notice that Malenkov grew up with childhood asthma from living among the steel mills of the floor he was born in. Growing up hand to mouth did not make Malenkov compassionate; in fact, it made him bitter and prone to angry outbursts that terrify his wife and the few friends he has left. He is also a devoted member of the Proletarian party of District 13, the official ideology of District 13.

When Aronovich Malenkov spoke, it was in a tone that showed that he thought the listeners should feel lucky to be in the same room as him.

"New citizens of District 13, I welcome and congratulate you. It has been determined, by the infinitely extending wisdom of our beloved leaders, that you are worthy of becoming citizens of the proletariat. I am sure this is a day you will all remember for as long as you live, for no better society has ever before existed in all he world.

At first, you may have trouble adjusting from the squalor of your former countries, but do not worry. The best minds of District 13 are willing to lead you into our way of life, the way of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, of our glorious president Alma Coin. In order to assure that you can learn our ways, you will undergo a period of reeducation in which the lies told to you by the tyrannical overlords, whom we rescued you from, will be washed away like the filth it is. Your eyes will be opened to the final stage in the civilization of man, and all it offers.

In order to assure that your descendants are free of the tyranny of disease and chaos inclination, we will select for you a mate from among the ranks of fellow new citizens that will bring the best offspring."

At this point, a twenty two year old woman, one who was selected from among the population of the Third Gran Colombian Republic and was already engaged prior to being selected, interrupted Malenkov with a question. "You intend to choose our mates? How can you expect us to marry someone we don't love?"

Fortunately for the questioner, this did not trigger one of Malenkov's angry outbursts. He simply laughed so loudly that it filled the announcement hall. Most of the District 13 soldiers laughed as well, but about half of these soldiers laughed not so much with genuine humor as with a nervous fake laugh reserved for when ones boss makes a joke one finds offensive.

Malenkov had only this response, "Hahahah! I see that you still hold to that archaic and outmoded superstition. Well no matter, you will grow out of it in one months time."

After wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, Malenkov continued. "I will now read out the marital unions as decreed by the Proletarian State, and the bearers of the names are to ascend to the stage, shake hands and exit through the door on the left to a room where one of our ingenious medical practitioners will preform a final procedure, and where the garrison lieutenant for the floor will assign you your rooms."

The people in the crowd of new citizens were not happy to know that their mates would be chosen for them, not were they happy that Malenkov acted like they wanted to be there when they were taken against their will.

Oblivious to the grumbling, Malenkov read off the names from a pre pared list.

"Aadam Farah" A nineteen year old man with a shaved head, who used to be a colonial soldier in the United Kalmar Empire, stepped up to the stage.

"Your mate will be Sigríõur Jonsdóttir."

A tall blond woman, who will turn twenty one in three months and until recently was an ex-convict in the northernmost region of the same Empire, walked up to the stage, shook hands with Farah, and the two walked into the next room on their left.

"Peter Harvest" A tall and muscular seventeen year old District 11 man as ended the stage.

"Your mate will be Takara Showa."

A nineteen year old from an independent Antarctic fishing town, walked up to the stage and shook hands with Peter.

"Andrew Jamison" A twenty one old year red haired man, a former citizen of the Frankish Kingdom by immigration, walked up.

"Your mate is Ada Columbus." The same woman who Malenkov laughed at walked up to the stage, but would not shake Andrews hand.

On and on, the list went. People from almost all corners of the world were brought to District 13 by secret operatives. All were brought with the intent of breathing new life into District 13s stagnating gene pool. The purpose of paring these newcomers with each other instead of District 13 bachelors is that letting their children grow up to mate with District 13 natives will carry less risk of drawing the people away from proletarianism.

There were still a few names left to call. "Cato Hardley"

Despite dreading this moment, Cato kept a stoic expression. As far as he was convinced, showing he was upset would only be admitting defeat. Just try to get through this, he thought.

"Your mate will be Katniss Everdeen." Katniss, who had also been dreading this moment, walked up to the stage. They both took a second to examine the other Before shaking hands.

The man standing before Katniss was a large and muscular man with icy blue eyes and a barely concealed temperament. Katniss correctly assumed that her State-assigned mate was not happy about the arrangement either. His blue eyes, blond hair, and brutish strength reminded her of a peacekeeper.

The woman standing before Cato was not as tall or big as him, but did not look weak either. He was sure that there was some hidden ability she had that could prove deadly to enemies. Her scowl made it clear to Cato that she was also upset by being taken away from wherever she came from.

They shook hands, and headed out the designated doorway as instructed. Behind them, they could hear the names of other people being called.

Once they were in the next room, they saw the only thing that could make their day worse. Sitting next to a chair, and holding a handheld machine, is Dr. Kurtz. He seemed board, as though he wanted to go to sleep.

"Cato Hardley, sit down." Cato did not want to sit down, but a soldier in a grey uniform held up his rifle in a manner that suggested sitting down.

Dr. Kurtz held the handheld machine to Cato's head, behind the left ear, and pressed a button. Cato gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as the microchip imbedded into his skull.

Katniss was asked to sit down, and struggled not to let out the wince that was inside of her. Cato rested his hand on top of hers for support, as he knew how much that cursed thing hurt.

"Okey, you have been embedded with a microchip. It will track your movement as far as five hundred miles away from District 13, not that you'll ever leave. Now that we know you have a desired genetic makeup, you will be expected to pass it on. I don't think even you are too stupid to understand where I'm going with this."

They were not, but they were still upset. Cato still tried to hide his ill temperament, but Katniss did not. "You can't make us-"

Dr. Kurtz held up his hand and corrected her. "Actually, we can. That microchip also monsters your body temperature, so we'll know of you have been ... following orders. If you refuse to, we will give you medicine that will render you unconscious so he can impregnate you."

The idea of being impregnated while unconscious horrified her, but what Cato said next made her feel that he was not as horrible as first coming off as.

"Not if _I _refuse to. And I will if she's nocked out."

Dr. Kurtz had an answer for that too. "If you both refuse to follow orders, then we have technology that can artificially impregnate her with your genes. Now I suggest you both go to the next room before I run out of patience. And as a reference point, a month apart is too infrequent for desired odds."

They both left for the next room, still feeling upset. At least they were away from Dr. Kurtz.

In the next room, they were handed a map of the floor and the license for their apartment room by Lieutenant Boggs. His friendly smile calmed them both down a slight bit, but they were still in a unhappy mood.


	6. Chapter 6:Re-education

After following the map, Katniss Everdeen and Cato Hardley found their way back to their apartment, room 73. Katniss, who was holding the room license, looked at the door handle for a few moments before realizing that the buttons on it were for an access code. She looked at the license and found the code; 8480778. After opening the metal door, they went inside and closed it behind them.

The inside is beyond plain; with bare concrete and steel for walls and floor, it was about roughly the size of Katniss's old home in district 12. However, size by where the similarities end. The only furniture in this one room apartment was a medium sized bed in the far left corner, four chairs made if crude metal in the other corner, a chest of drawers leaning against the wall between the chairs and the bed, and the built in television those for chairs are sitting around. The only possessions they had to start them out were four pares of identical, grey, gender neutral civilian uniforms, two pairs of work boots, four pairs of socks, two crude tin cups, and a needle and thread.

The only thing they did not recognize was what looked like a hole sticking into the wall next to the door; closer inspection if the metal instruction engraving next to it revealed the hole to be a machine that will tattoo the days schedule each morning.

They were both tired from a long day, but there was only one bed. There were only the blankets on the bed, so sleeping on the floor was out of question. Cato simply climbed into the bed on the side closet to the wall, and he even left his clothes on.

He looked at Katniss and said, "There's more room." and added "I'm too tired tonight for anything, if that's what you're worried about."

Katniss, also leaving her clothes on, climbed into the bed next to him. Not close enough for them to be touching each other, but still close enough that they could feel each others warmth.

She began to warn Cato, "If you so much as-"

Cato interrupted her with a yawn, "I already told you, I'm too tired. Don't worry, I promise I won't try anything; I'd prefer our first time to be when we have more energy anyway."

Cato chuckled in a way that revealed that he said the last part in a teasing manner, but Katniss did not go to sleep for an hour after the lights went off. Despite her distrust, Cato was better than his word; he did not stir from his sleep or move an inch for the whole night. Once Katniss began to be at ease, she fell asleep.

* * *

><p>In her sleep, she did not relive her fathers death as she normally does at night. She slept soundly, completely undisturbed. When they were awoken by the alarm that signaled the start of hour one, Katniss was surprised to find that her head was leaning against Cato's shoulder. She was able to jump out of bed a few seconds before Cato finally willed himself to open his eyes; he internally groaned at the thought of the new day the prison they now had to call home.<p>

After the unpleasant experience of getting the twenty four hour arm tattoo- it is an experience that will need some getting used to- they headed to the location on hour one: reeducation.

After navigating the hallway with the floor map, they finally reached the state sanctioned location. The hallway leading to the education chamber was being filled with the students of the floor who walked, or flowed, through the open metal double doors. On either side of the double door was a stone faced soldier standing at attention, one of whom looked young enough to be in fourteen years of age. As Katniss and her husband, Cato, walked down the hallway from the outer edge to the education chamber, she noticed the writing that went along the wall.

The older one was a finely carved engraving which quoted the late President Lazarus Coin, who incidentally was the grandfather of Alma Coin and the father of her immediate predecessor. This is what it said:

"Bring to us your child for his first twenty years, and he will be forever a Proletarian."

The fresh one was in the early stages of being removed and had been painted above it. The still dripping work by an unknown author read like this:

"Show your child what the party really does, and there will be no more Proletarians."

Katniss is only able to glance at this re-quote for a few seconds before heading to her first class.

* * *

><p><strong>Orientation and Correct Citizen Behavior<strong>

"Students, welcome to District 13. In this class, you are going to learn how to behave, work, and think like a proletarian. Follow he careful truths of this class, and of your education in general, and you should be successful in enjoying the full fruits of the workers paradise. Ignore these moral lessons, and you reject the gifts of the leaders dear to our hearts."

Paul Dybenko, teacher this class and self proclaimed Proletarian stalwart; but an ex secret policemen should be expected to fully support his party. Mr. Dybenko had a large scar sprawled across the left side of his head, and was missing an ear because of how he got it.

Some of his teeth were steel crowns, and the real ones they replace did not fall out naturally.

His explained that they would learn in his class how to behave in the mess hall, the workplace, the public bathrooms, the public showers, and in training. He also went over a range of transgressions against the state, and their corresponding punishments. He even handed out a list to each of his new students.

_Food stealing (first attempt) - ten public lashings_

_Food stealing (second attempt) - twenty five public lashings_

_Food stealing (third attempt) - sixty public lashings + one months hard labor_

_Food stealing (forth attempt) - one hundred public lashings + one years hard labor + one years imprisonment_

_Food stealing (fifth attempt) - six hundred public lashings + public firing squad execution_

_Food hoarding (first attempt) - six hundred public lashings + three years hard labor_

_Food hoarding (second attempt) - public electric chair execution_

_Food hoarding (repeated undiscovered attempts) - public lashing until execution_

_Minor tardiness (first instance) - five on the spot lashings_

_Minor tardiness (repeated instance) - fifteen on the spot lashings_

_Severe tardiness (first instance) - twenty on the spot lashings_

_Minor tardiness (repeated instances) - thirty on the spot lashings_

_Possession of minor contraband substances (first instance) - removal of right hand_

_Possession of minor contraband substances (repeated instance) - bayonet execution_

_Possession of major contraband substances_ (first instance) - drowning room execution of entire family__

_Disobeying orders of soldiers of officers or disruption of law - punishment decided by officer in question_

_Murder or attempted murder - public firing squad execution_

_Spreading dangerous superstition or ideals - _public firing squad execution (pardoned upon publicly denouncing said superstitions or ideals)__

__Treason - public or on the spot execution (method dependent on level of treason or precedent) __

"Now, any questions?"

"Ada raised her hand and asked a question. "Why doesn't this list the punishment for rapists or pedophiles?"

Mr. Dybenko answered this question with a tone that suggested it was redundant. "Because there are no rapists or pedophiles in district 13. Only consumerist headonists in the Capitol have pedophiles and rapists." How this wasn't obvious to the others was beyond Mr. Dybenko was beyond him.

* * *

><p><strong>History<strong>

Laura Thomson was the history teacher, and she taught the history approved by District 13. The students who found it hard to swallow, or outright could not believe the state sanctioned history kept their mouths shut. Katniss, Cato, and several others noticed that one student in the front row wore an iron glove on his left hand, and it prevented him from moving it.

First, she gave a brief description of what will be learned in their class. "In the corse of human history, the civilizations of the world have been constant clashes between the workers and producers of the world; the Proletariat, and the aristocratic exploiters; the Capitalists. For a long time, the Capitalists ruled with unquestioned; first as feudal overlords and then as property owners. In the nation that preceded Panem, the capitalists ruled the nation as a theocracy and used false superstitions to num the people with more efficiency than morphling.

These Capitol predecessors,without exception, inherited all their wealth without earning a penny of it. One example, Andrew Carnegie, three times over had more money than the entire Capitol. He inherited every penny of it. And when he wasn't promoting imperialism, he kept it all to himself while the working class endured an endless famine, a famine that still grips all districts in Panem from District 1 to District 12."

Cato internally scoffed at this, for he knew first hand that District 2 was _not _impoverished_. _Hewas about to give the teacher a piece of his mind, but Katniss calmed him down by holding his hand. Katniss herself knew that the Capitol was greedy, but felt incredulous about what Mrs. Thomson said. First hand experience with Capitol rule made her familiar with propaganda and non-truths, and she knew that the best way to avoid "_public firing squad execution_" was to keep her mouth shut. She and Cato both listened to the teacher with a healthy amount of skepticism.

"Speaking for the Proletariat was a man named Karl Marx, a man who founded the core ideas of what would eventually become Proletarianism. His version lacked only one key principal; they did not regulate the genetic pool for the common good. Despite persecution and assassination attempts, Marx predicted the fall of the old ways and the replacement with the much superior World Proletariat State. While he never lived to see this come to fruition, his grandson founded the first Proletariat state. His grandsons name was Vladimir Lenin, and not only overthrew the tyrant in his own nation or Russia, but even succeeded in defending it against the allied forces of Germany, Austria, Britannia, France, and the nation that preceded Panem; this war was the first of many world wars.

When Lenin died, his personally chosen successor, Joseph Stalin, industrialized his nation without any negative affects."

Ada raised her hand to correct Mrs. Thomson, but was told by one of the many soldiers in the room that there would be no questions.

Mrs. Thomson continued, "Stalins empire grew to rule the entire triple continent of Europe, Asia, and Africa. His scientists even put a man on the moon. However, his empire was destroyed by several repeated bombardment of nuclear strikes. The Proletariat would not rise again until after the war of Capitol Aggression, in which our glorious independence leader, Lazarus Coin, gained our autonomy. Because the other districts that rebelled did not do so under our principals, they were defeated and subjected to cruelty."

Mrs. Thomson's lecture goes on like this for a long time, and eventually boredom causes many in the room to get sleepy or drop outright. Katniss and Cato were simply not able to pay attention to the other classes; which were Math, Science, Reproductive studies, Panem language (for the students originating from abroad), profession training, and Proletariat youth.

* * *

><p>They were still tired when lunch came around, and the bland lack of flavor did nothing to wake them. While Katniss was glad the teachers were not alcoholics who only showed up two days a week, these ones weren't exactly an improvement over the last ones.<p>

Needless to say, Katniss and Cato did not look forward to their stay here.


	7. Chapter 7:Inter-District dialogue

Katniss and Cato both were eating lunch in the mess hall. The table they were at was crowded, the food was absent of any semblance of flavor. It was a sort of dry gruel with a smaller bowl of radishes on the side. As he ate Cato struggled to force the food down, haunted by memories of the good food he ate in district 2. Katniss also did not enjoy the food, as she was used to eating meats and greenery she got from the woods.

The only decorations in the mess hall were the large portrait of President Coin that hung over the double doorway, and the posters that covered the walls. At least the posters didn not drone on and on.

As they were eating they saw the boy, the one who was forced to wear the iron glove, walking past their table.

Cato asked, "Hey, why were you forced to wear that metal glove?"

The boy stopped. "What do you mean?"

"Was it punishment for anything?"

The boy smiled feebly, "No, I didn't do anything warranting discipline. You see, I'm the teachers son. She doesn't want to be accused of favoritism, so I wear the iron glove once or twice a month."

While Katniss and Cato were speechless, the boy walked over to another table that was less crowded. His left hand looked much smaller and boney than the right one, it was clear the growth was stunted.

In an attempt to get their minds off that, Cato tried changing the conversation.

"Tell me about you."

Katniss was at first taken off guard by either Cato's bluntness, his sudden interest in her, or both. During her short hesitation, Cato explained his interest.

"If we're going to be living together, we should at least get to know each other."

This seemed fair enough to Katniss. "What do you want to know?"

After thinking about this for awhile, Cato found a starting point. "Where are you from?"

"District 12. And you?"

Cato responded with a hidden mixture of pride from where he originated, and bitterness at never seeing it again. "District 2."

To Katniss, this explained a few things about Cato. It definitely explained why Cato looked like he stepped out of one of the propaganda videos of marching peacekeepers that constantly play on television during the times between the Hunger Games. She wanted to ask Cato if he was a career or a peacekeeper, but something about the District 13 soldiers lining the wall made her decide against asking this.

Instead, it was Cato who asked her a question. "What was district 12 like?"

Katniss thought about this for a moment. On one hand, the starvation, deterioration, neglect, coal mines, and struggle are part of district 12. On the other hand, her loving mother, her loving father while he was alive, her innocent sister, a close community, and her friend Gale are also part of District 12.

"Living in district 12 wasn't easy. But there were still things about it that made it worth it. What about your District?"

Cato thought about this for a few seconds. For a career, living in District 2 meant nonstop practice and training; he actually enjoyed athleticism and it made him as strong as he is today. His parents might have been emotionally distant, but they taught him how to be a man. District 2 taught him, and almost every boy and girl growing up there, about honor, chivalry, loyalty, courage, and the glory to be earned in those principals. Even if his parents were emotionally distant, and even if his athletic training left little spare time, he still had friends and family. His grandfather, a retired peacekeeper and veteran of the Dark Days, would be more than willing to pass on his wisdom his grandsons. Cato's cousin, Lysander, would also be his closest friend as the two grew up together.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"What do you like about district 2?"

Had Katniss asked what Cato liked _most _about District 2, he would have had trouble deciding.

"The first thing that comes to mind are the pristine forests and mountains, especially when I went hunting with my cousin and grandfather."

This surprised Katniss a little; she did not think it would be possible to hunt there if it was as strict as Darius described it. "You hunted too?"

"Yes, they let us hunt. Did they let you hunt in District 12?"

Katniss had mixed feelings about Cato hunting for sport; she hunted to survive while he clearly did not, but she knew she would keep hunting even if she never had to worry about food again. Katniss thought about whether to give the technical answer or the actual answer. She opted for the actual answer.

"Yes, the Headpeacekeeper lets us hunt."

They talked about this for about ten more minutes, until Cato noticed something. When he stopped talking mid sentence, Katniss followed his gaze to see what caught his attention.

In the middle of the lunch hall and chained to the floor sat a condemned man. His civilian uniform was reduced to rags, his body was little more than skin and bones. Scars and lashes criss-crossed his entire body, some of them were fresh. His hair had turned white and fallen out, despite the fact that he was only in his thirties. His eyes were black pits, surrounded by sorrowful bags.

At his feet was a sign, it read: disobedient scum.

Katniss stood up and walked towards the dying man, forgetting that she was still holding her food bowl. Cato followed her, leaving his behind; the others at the table scooped a Cato's food from his bowl and devoured it.

As Katniss remembered that the bowl was in her hand, she laid the bowl of food down in front of him. Katniss did not think about what she was doing or how it could come back t her; she did not need to. She looked at the starved person and saw herself when she was a child: giving up and on the brink of death.

He looked at the food, than painfully looked up at the person who gave it to him.

"You need it more than I do."

The person started to bawl. He cried painfully, intensely, and every atom of his strength cried with him. His crying sounded soft, and the only tears to come out of his eyes were a fine layer of mist. It sounded like he was in pain from crying, and he was.

Seeing this action made Cato gain a new level of respect for Katniss, and just maybe he learned something.

While Katniss, Cato, and several others sitting nearby watched the man cry his sorrow out, and just a little bit of joy at knowing he was still a human, none of them noticed the three District 13 soldiers walking intently towards the man. Even less people noticed that the soldiers were carrying guns, and that the leader firmly held a whip.


	8. Chapter 8:Officers of District 13

The four soldiers, clad in District 13 uniforms, pushed their way through the crowd. Their leader, growing impatient, pulled out his whip and lashed the people in the crowd between him and Katniss. The crack of the whip knocked three of the unlucky receivers on the ground, of which only one got up immediately afterwards. The rest of the onlookers stepped back a few steps, and the soldiers addressed the situation.

"Just what the blazes do you think your doing?"

Before Katniss could respond, the lead officer shouted, "I said, get away from him!"

When Katniss did not immediately comply, one of the other three guards grabbed her arm and roughly shoved her aside. Had there not been a table nearby to grab onto, she would have fallen to to ground.

While Cato went over to help Katniss up, the guard directed his attention on the man chained to the ground. He swung the whip in his face at close range, knocking him over and cutting his face deeply.

"This is what you get! This is what scum like you deserves!"

He beat the man repeatedly, each lash of the whip cutting away part of the mans face. In an act of foolhardy bravery, Katniss tried pulling the guard off his victim. She did this too fast for Cato to even think to stop her.

"Stop! Your killing him!"

This only made the guard even more angry. He turned the whip towards her, and when she raised her arm to block it she felt the sharp cut. He the , while still holding the handle of his whip, raised it with the intent of bashing her skull in.

"And you, what if I am? Whores like you need to learn to respect their betters."

He was about to swing the handle of the whip down with malicious intent. However, he had not noticed Cato standing to her left.

Before the guard knew it, he was on the ground. What he experienced was something akin to being mauled by an enraged beast. By the time two onlookers had been able to restrain Cato, the lead guard was beaten to the point of near unconsciousness. The other three guards, who were waiting back for fear of starting a riot, helped their leader stand up.

The crowd had mixed feelings. Some of the crowds more party-supporting members, who were the most vocal, demanded that the guards "kill them!" or "rip their eyes off!". Others in the crowd pleaded, in defense of Katniss and Cato, that they were "young and reckless" and that the guards should "give them another chance". A few even jeered at the guards from behind the safety of the crowed. Most of the onlookers considered themselves lucky to have lunch _and_ a show.

While two of the guards held the main one propped up, the third held his gun pointed at Cato. If Cato was afraid, his unflinching face did not show it; one thing he was taught was to never fear an honorable death. He did, however, allow his hand to grip Katniss's.

The guard with the gun mumbled these words: "You did it now. Now your both gonna die."

However, there was something nobody noticed; when the fight first broke out, Lieutenant Boggs had been making his way from his table at the far side of the mess hall to the center where the fight broke out. He had to push his way through the crowd, but he was able to get to the eye of the storm in time.

His calm voice was able to prevent tempers from boiling over for now. "Okey, what's going on?"

The guard holding the gun gave the salute, as did the barley conscious guard who's face is covered with his own blood. "Lieutenant Boggs, these two tried giving food to a condemned man. After that, this ones husband violently and without provocation assaulted me."

Boggs listened with an air of professionalism, which hid his justified skepticism, while the soldier lied blatantly. Then, Boggs turned to Katniss and Cato.

"Now I have one side of the story, let's here the other. Is what he says true?"

Boggs saw the scar on Katniss's' arm, and suspected that she did not exactly provoke the fight.

"I saw the man was starving, so I tried to feed him."

While keeping a professional outward appearance, he inwardly was pleasantly surprised. Most people treated condemned persons like corpses, and he had seen too many to remember. Boggs repressed the urge to smile that this woman, whoever she was, still saw humanity in people.

Boggs then turned to Cato, "Did you attack this person? If so, why?"

Cato's response was simple. "He started hitting my wife. So yes, I attacked him."

On of the soldiers tried to complain, "Sir, if I may-"

"You may not. Did you attack these two without warning?"

The soldier knew that Boggs would know if he was lying, but he also knew what would happen to him if he admitted it.

"If I have to look at the security footage before you admit it, your punishment will be much worse."

"I took what I considered just action."

"In other words, you tried to murder three people over a bowl of food?" Boggs gestured to the spilled bowl of food on the floor next the the now unmoving chained man.

"yes sir."

"You know what the punishment for attempted murder, don't you?"

"Please sir ..."

Again, Boggs held up his hand and the soldiers were silent. "I'm feeling merciful today, so here is my orders."

Now some other soldiers were surrounding the four attackers. "Take these four soldiers to receive five public lashings."

"Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou,..."

What Boggs said next wiped the smirks clear off their faces. "And after that, have their ration cards revoked for eight months time."

The four assaulters screamed as they were dragged away. "No, Please! Anything but that!"

Boggs knew that giving the death sentence would be useless as the District 13 bureaucracy is an unfeeling machine of steel and scrap saving, capable of putting a uniform on any subhuman sadist and repackaging him as a 'soldier'. The four soldiers will plead their case before one of his superiors, who would then undue the punishment and verbally reprimand Boggs for interfering with their jobs. Revoking the ration card would be the most painful death sentence if they were not soldiers, but at least those four will have to wait days or even weeks for their pardons; a taste of what it is to be hungry might just make them consider food less of a privilege.

After the show ended, the crowd dispersed and returned to their seats. Boggs used one of his bandages to wrap up Katniss's arm and Cato's knuckles. He told them both that their wounds should be healed up by then.

As Boggs sat down back at his table in the far corner of the room, next to his infant son, he got to thinking about what to do.

He knew he had some good news for Dr. Aurelius.


	9. Chapter 9:Arranging an appointment

Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs, were both sitting in chairs in the office of Floor Manager Aronovich Malenkov. They there to convince Malenkov to grant them permission for the 'experiment'. If they were going to going to proceed with their plan, they needed a convincing cover.

The hard part of the cover would not be earning the trust of their Floor Manager; they already had it. As far as Malenkov and the other higher ups knew, Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs were completely loyal. While Malenkov thought that Boggs was not as enthusiastic as preferable, all this meant was that Boggs would not be promoted anytime soon.

Dr. Aurelius's refusal to choose who goes to the crematorium would normally raise a red flag, but this is not noticed since the other doctors do not notice it as much as they notice the refusal of Dr. Olybrius; being a psychiatrist and not a neurologist meant that he could purposely miss deal-breaking details about patients and does not have to stand subject to the same scrutiny Dr. Olybrius does. While choosing who dies is voluntary, not doing it means loosing half your rations. Dr. Kurtz was able to reach his lofty position so quickly because he put extra time in the termination choosing. Needless to say, Dr. Aurelius and Dr. Olybrius were not on friendly terms with Dr. Kurtz.

Now Dr. Aurelius and Boggs hoped desperately that Malenkov did not see through their ploy.

Malenkov sat behind a large desk, drinking decaffeinated coffee from a can; a beverage normally never rationed to the masses under the supposedly fair ration system, but that Malenkov drinks a gallon of a day. In front of him were paper copies of the files of Katniss Everdeen and Cato Hardley.

"So tell me, why should I allow these two to have time out of their work each day?"

Dr. Aurelius, being the psychiatrist, explained the false reasons.

"Well, noticed that these two are not adjusting to our way of life as fast as hoped for. Their chips show they are not procreating, and I think you are aware of the little mishap yesterday."

Malenkov was aware of it. Once the four soldiers reached the front of the very long and very slow queue of appeals, he intended to restore their ration cards and pardon them.

"Well, so what? They can be made to understand by force if necessary."

"Be that is it may, I think there is an easier way. Boggs here has a young child still in infancy, and he is a decorated veteran of the Carib campaign. I propose that Boggs and his son go it my apartment so I can teach his son a little about science. The two new citizens will also come along and observe these lessons. This way, while in a safe and controlled environment, these two could be brought around to our way of thinking. Close observation of the child will show them the positives of child bearing and convince them to procreate, where as being around a decorated veteran like Boggs will teach them the superiority of the proletariat."

Malenkov was silent for a moment, with only a look of consideration on his face. He then turned to Boggs, "I take it you would be willing to participate in such an excursive?"

Boggs said, "Oh yes. I've known Dr. Aurelius a long time and can trust him. He's like an uncle to my son, I'm sure he'll love seeing Dr. Aurelius more often. I don't mind the two newcomers sitting in, especially if it will encourage them to have their own kids."

Malenkov thought about this for a while, and said nothing. Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs were secretly worried that he would reject their proposal, and that they would have to find a harder way to carry out their plan. Fortunately, their fears were put to rest.

"Okey, I see no reason against it. I will give them two hours a day for these appointments, and they will be right after school. After an amount of time, I will ask you too how the progress is coming along. Don't disappoint me."


	10. Chapter 10:Resistance

Cato groaned as he woke up in the morning, remembering that he was not in District 2. With this memory came the realization that he may never return home or see his family members again. He climbs out of bed quietly, so as not to wake Katniss. However, the hour one alarm already woke her, and she climbed out of bed too.

"Good morning. I see you also had a good sleep."

While Katniss did not exactly have an ideal sleep, it was a net positive that she was not troubled by nightmares.

Cato was wearing the same clothes he wore to sleep and that he wore yesterday; it was time for a new change of clothes. He picked up a grey civilian uniform from out of the drawer, and walked over the wall. Facing the wall, was about to pull off his shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"Changing."

It took Cato a moment to realize why she was asking, when he did he added, "I'll look away when you undress, if you want. Quite frankly, I don't care whether or not you watch me."

Katniss still looked away when Cato changed out of his old civilian uniform and into a fresh one. She was still not comfortable with that sort of thing, but she knew that she was only delaying the inevitable.

After they were both dressed, they went to get their state-sanctioned schedule temporarily tattooed directly onto their arms. It still hurt like nothing else when the needle shot hot ink directly into their skin, but it would take getting used to.

They headed to the school for reeducation, and found their way slightly easier than last time. They walked down the long hallways of District 13, joining the endless stream of grey civilian uniforms that cover obedient bodies and some disobedient ones. Once again they walk past the engraving that quoted President Coin's grandfather, and they could see that the defiant rebuttal had already been wiped off.

Their first two classes were inconsequential, just textbook work. Mr. Dybenko gave them each one pen, and instructed each of them that it would be the only one they would get, and that if they lost it they would get five lashes for a replacement. He handed them a worksheet that they were to complete in class.

Their history class was just textbook work as well. They read chapter one in the state sanctioned text book, which covered the class struggle between the haves and the have-nots. At least there were no verbal droning.

Math was a breath of fresh air as their teacher was pleasant enough, if a bit on the lethargic side. Katniss was just thankful he showed up to class not only on a regular basis, but also on time; a quality the her old math teacher back in District 12 does not have. In the District 12 school, it was considered a busy school day if a third if the teachers even showed up.

* * *

><p>After the re-education for the day was finally and at long last over, Katniss and Cato headed where there schedule told them to go next. They were a bit confused that their schedule told them to go to Dr. Aurelias's apartment, but they would rather see what happens than risk 'five on the spot lashings'. They had a little trouble finding their way there, and hoped they would not be late.<p>

When they finally got there, they knocked on the door and waited for Dr. Aurelias. He opened the door and smiled.

"Please, do come in."

Dr. Aurelias holds the door while Katniss and Cato enter his apartment, and then he closed it behind them.

"You two can sit down if you want."

Neither Katniss nor Cato move for twenty seconds; they are still taking in the apartment they are in. It was vastly different than the room they shared. Unlike their unfurnished one room cell, all of the four rooms of Dr. Aurelias's apartment was furnished with chairs, bookshelves, tables, and desks piled high with used and unused notepaper. There was a refrigerator in his bed room, and a furnace that acted as a fireplace in his living room. While the state tells its citizens that the ration system is fair and equal, some have more equality than others.

After being given permission, Katniss and Cato sat down in two of the chairs in the living room. Dr. Aurelias explained to them both the official reason for them being there, but also gave them a notepad on which he wrote the real reason for them being here.

"I am sure you are both wondering why you are here, but if you simply allow me to explain the situation without interruption, I will be able to clear away any confusion. It has been noticed that you have not been adjusting well to life here, and I believe that regular appointments here will make the transition as painless as possible. I think it would be healthy for you to observe the lieutenant with his son to see that childbearing is nothing to worry about. Apart from that ..."

As he was saying this, he handed Katniss the notepad. She looked at it and showed it to Cato.

**Do not say anything when you are reading this, or about what you read afterwards. ALL THE ROOMS ARE BUGGED. **

**Lieutenant Boggs and I both know you hate living in District 13, but you need not fear us**_. _**We both intend to give you an uncensored education here; to train you mentally and physically for escape. We do not know when or even if we will get the chance, but we want you to be ready should the opportunity arise.**

**For right now, it is important that you remain inconspicuous, tell nobody of our plans. No matter who it is, no matter how much you think you can trust them, you can not. Even if you can, you are only placing them at risk. **

**Outside these paper, do not draw attention to yourselves in any way; do not question the authority, do not upset any higher ups, do not do anything that may make the authorities pay attention to us. We want to remain secret until the time comes. Put in fake smiles, laugh at the teachers jokes, only talk about your old homes in a way that sounds like complaining, just do not do or say anything that might suggest anything less than total loyalty to the party.**

**It is important that all records of our plot be burned afterwards, so no evidence can be used against us. Nod if you are willing to take part in our plot.**

Cato and Katniss both nodded eagerly the moment they finished reading. Dr. Aurelias smiled.

"Good." He said. "I'm glad to see you two so willing to give proletarianism a try."

He then ripped the piece of paper off the notepad, walked over to the furnace, and burned the evidence. They were all happy, for now they already proved that President Coin does not own them.


	11. Chapter 11:Private lessons

Over the next three days Dr. Aurelias educated Katniss and Cato on things they were kept in the dark about.

He had a method in which he would go through a copy of the District 13 history book, and chapter by chapter write down everything that was wrong with it on a separate piece of paper. He also had them read books from a cache of illegal literature he had hidden in the vents in one of his walls as supplementary references, and was able to access it without making any noise. While they were doing this, Boggs would tell stories to his son so the bugs would not suspect anything was amiss.

Dr. Aurelias acquired his cache of illegal literature from the District 13 Intellectual Society, a covert network that had at its hight hundreds of members, and of which Boggs and Dr. Aurelias are the sole survivors. Now they were passing on their knowledge to two new recruits, two whom they hoped to escape with.

Some of the history Katniss and Cato learned this way surprised them, while other things did not. In the former category, while they suspected anyone praised by Malenkov would not be a good person, they still had no idea of the extent of the destruction Stalin and Lenin, the two historical figures Malenkov praised in his welcoming speech, caused to their own people. They were equally baffled by many other things; Panem not being the only country on Earth, people having really gone into space (though they suspected that the astronauts were not Proletarians), the various world wars and fallen empires of the ages long ago passed, and of many other things.

They did not blindly accept all things taught, for there were some things that they only ceased to automatically dismiss after being given several examples from different sources. Dr. Aurelias did not mind their skepticism; in fact, he encouraged them to evaluate and study something before accepting it. Among the parts of history for which Katniss and Cato convincing was the philanthropy practiced by the wealthy people of pre-Panem, anyone at all having gone to the moon (Dr. Aurelias actually had to show them several preserved pictures), common diseases having been almost eradicated in pre-Panem times, the Proletarian empire of pre-Panem eurasia having sided with their ideological enemies in a world war and then collapsing without invasion or nuclear strike (they did not believe a dictator would step down without a fight), humans having not originated from the continent Panem currently dominates, and many other things.

However, the concept they had the hardest time being convinced of the republic; while they had different reasons, they both felt that the republic of pre-Panem could not have possibly existed. Katniss felt that, while the concepts of democracy and the people deciding together who they want to rule them, were definitely ideal compared to the current state of Panem and District 13, it must not have worked in practice if the North American civilization could not survive the collapse. Cato, on the other hand, did not even think the ideas were good; he felt that it valued leaders based on popularity rather than skill, and he believed it inferior to the peacekeeper meritocracy he grew up within. Both would need a bit more convincing.

Dr. Aurelias did not yet extend the history part of the education beyond the two hundred thousand or so years that modern humans were around for. If political ideologies can cause culture shock, how is he possibly supposed to explain more complex scientific concepts that the neglected education system of District 12 and the martial oriented schools of District 2 did not tell them. He intended to cover that after history was wrapped up.

Of most interest was a map of District 13 he showed them for when the chance to escape arrives. The District had sixty five floors, so the map was three dimensional.

Each of the sixty five floors are designed to have the same basic outline; a large decagon divided into forty sectors. Each of the ten sides of the decagon is divided into four sectors,which all form wedges towards the center. In the center of each sector is a main hallway that leads from a hallway circling around the outer edge to the central circle.

In the heavily guarded and monitored center is a colossal elevator terminal, with six elevators corresponding to each sector; totaling two hundred and forty elevator shafts that lead from the top floor all the way to the bottom. These elevators all circle around he floor auditorium, with the backs of these elevators making up the inside walls of the auditorium. Pillared around the elevator terminal are ten emergency stairwells, one for each two sectors.

Back to the outer circle, there are at least six and ten large rectangular chambers separate from the decagon, the number depending on the industry of each floor, and only reachable by hallways build jutting off from the outer edge hallway. The mandatory ones are the floor mess hall, floor training field, floor education facility, the floor garrison quarters, the floor supply warehouse which is built with an industrial supply transport elevator, and the floor medical facility. The other four are used for whatever the industry of the floor is; for example, the floors that grow food products use those four chambers as extra farms, while the floor that processes imported ores may use those four chambers as smelting rooms. Every floor from the 50th down also has an emergency shelter which can hold the floors population in the case of a subterranean reaching bomb, but the close quarters and limited supply of these shelters means that they can only be occupied for a week at most.

While most of the sectors in each floor are devoted to the floor industry, the rest act as housing for the floor population. The total population of district 13 is about ten million. Each floor is allowed a maximum of 15,500 people. Any surplus population on a floor is given the choice of being relocated to an underpopulated or newly completed floor, or immigrating to a foreign country that follows or has begun to adopt the principals of proletarianism; though those choosing the second option are five times out of ten captured by the Capitol to supplement the Avox population.

Katniss and Cato studied hard in each appointment, but they did not mind. It was the only time they were allowed to be themselves, even if only on the paper They wrote with and that is later burned on the furnace. Apart from that, they would gladly jump on any opportunity to defy the wishes of President Coin. With each lesson, each letter they wrote, their determination to remain defiant grew. They would not let District 13 break them.


	12. Chapter 12:Trust

Katniss and Cato were not woken up by the morning alarm, but actually woke up five or so seconds before the bell in subconscious anticipation just like every morning in what they both secretly regarded as a hellhole.

Katniss lifted her arm out from behind Cato's shoulders, climbed out of bed, and began to dress herself in clothes from the drawers. Cato sat up in the bed and watched her. They did not say anything about last night, but they both remember.

Last night, when they got home and had thirty minutes of spare time before lights out, they knew that there was no more time to wait. It had been about three weeks, and neither of them wanted to be brought in for artificial fertilization. Last night, they consummated their marriage. Cato promised beforehand to make the experience as painless as possible, and more importantly told Katniss she could trust him. Neither one knew what to expect, nor did they have any prior experience to draw on. It was something new.

They both hoped the awkwardness would dissipate throughout the day.

* * *

><p>They went to their first class, and found that Mr. Dybenko was going to be their teacher for the whole part of the day devoted to school. Fortunately, they were going to be learning how to work while he stayed in the class to work on grading papers.<p>

They sat down at one of the work stations in the chamber, as today they were starting to learn basic information on different crafts so the leaders knew which craft to assign them to. Right now they were in the floor sowing factory, operating the sewing machines poorly with only an hours instruction. They were inefficient in part because because they wore more focused on not getting their hands caught in the machine than making sure they sowed the boots together fast enough. They could clearly see children as young as six working on the machines, some of which were missing limbs either directly or indirectly as the result of accidents.

Katniss and Cato, both of whom were used to fresh forest air, were still not adjusted to the stale air of District 13. In fact, they could both agree that the thing they missed almost the most was a light breeze of fresh and air. As they sowed the shoes, they noticed something terrifying three tables in front of them.

Takara Showa, the candidate who was imported from Antarctica, accidentally knocked over the sewing machine. It fell off the work table and landed on the floor with a thud. The overseer walked over to her and pulled her out of her chair so hard she fell on the ground. He then kicked her violently in the stomach five times.

"This is what you get! This is the punishment for destroying what belongs to the peoples liberators!"

He then dragged the terrified woman to the overseers desk in front of the room, held his hand firm, and gestured with his hand to one of the guards. Cato immediately recognized this as the guard who was about to shoot him and his wife some weeks ago. The guard walked over to Takara without a gun in his hands; he held a military combat knife.

With one slow downward sawing motion, Takara screamed in agonizing pain as she lost the top half of her index finger. Her husband from District 11, Peter Harvest, ran over to her, tore off a length of fabric from his shirt, and tried without success to stop the bleeding. The overseer simply sighed, and told his guard to walk the bleeding woman to Dr. Kurtz office.

Holding up the severed half of her finger in his hand, the overseer addressed the whole chamber with a grim warning.

"Let this serve as an example on the cost of negligence. I can promise you that anyone who damages what belongs to the proletariat will suffer a fate so wretched they will beg for the sweet and merciful generosity of death. However, work hard and you shall reap the full fruits of the workers paradise; for each according to his ability, and each according to his need."

In a flourish of the hand, he threw the finger into the rows of tables to the dismay of those it landed next to. This caused a good laugh from the guards in the factory floor, and made everyone forget that the overseer was the only one in the room who could expect to ever eat fruit again.

They all went back to work, trying desperately to pretend they did not just watch someone have their finger hacked off. They all heard the threat, and trusted that he would have as few scruples over carrying it out as he would lost sleep over the finger he had removed. In his speech, 'paradise' was used rather loosely.


	13. Chapter 13:Home life

Cato and Katniss both finished their day, and now had thirty minutes of downtime before lights out. So far, not all the awkwardness had dissipated.

Cato waited eight minutes, and when Katniss did not say anything he decided to be blunt about it. His voice had the same levelheadedness he is able to maintain in most circumstances, he did not sound hurt or emotional at all. In his mind, he simply knew that they would need to talk to each other if they were to have any chance of getting out of this alive.

"Arn't you going to say anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you haven't said a word to me all day. I'm sorry if I was painful of unpleasant, but it isn't exactly fair to treat me like I forced myself on you."

"You didn't hurt me, and it wasn't _that_ bad."

"Then why won't you talk?"

"I'm talking to you right now. What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I suppose I'd like to know more about you. We're going to be spending a lot of time together and we know almost nothing about each other." Well, they did find out _something_ about each other last night.

"What do you want to know?"

Cato thought of a starting point before finically asking a common one, "For starters, do you have any family?"

This was not something Katniss liked to talk about, but she knew she would have to sooner or later. "Yes, I have my sister and my mother. My father ... died when I was a child."

Cato's only knowledge of losing a family member is when his grandmother passed; he was very young when it happened. He did not say anything conforting, but sat down next to her on the bed.

Cato's voice did not have even a little pity in it, and Katniss was thankful because pity was the one thing she did not want. "Want to talk about it?"

"No, not really." Then to change the subject, "Do you have any family?"

"Yes. My parents and grandfather, and my cousin and his mother."

"Are they nice?"

"I don't see my aunt often, but by cousin and grandpa are kind to me."

"Would about your parents?"

This question caught Cato completely off guard, because it had never occurred to him to consider this. "What do you mean?"

"Are your parents nice to you?"

Cato asked himself this question, and paused for a moment to answer it. His mother and father certainly fed him and clothed him well, they made sure he had a good education, and taught him how to be a man as well as what it was to be a warrior. On the other hand, Cato's parents were not exactly warm or emotionally close. Granted, they never abused him in any physical way; they avoided beating him out of fear that doing so would make him weak willed or timid. Cato knew that he respected his patents, but he can not easily recall them showing affection.

As a result of his mixed feelings, this was the only answer Cato could say. "Maybe, I dunno. Do you get along with your mother and sister well enough?"

Now it was Katniss's turn to consider a question carefully. She loved her sister Prim dearly, and she loved her mother. But Katniss was not exactly pleased that her mother sunk into a clinical depression immediately after her father died, and stayed in that state of mind for years afterwards. That is not something easily forgettable.

"Yes, I guess so."

The lights shut off, signaling that it was time for them to sleep. They both climbed into the bed with their clothes on and went to sleep.

"Goodnight."

"We can continue where we left of tomorrow, right?"

"Sure."

Despite witnessing someone loose a finger, neither one of them was plagued by nightmares that night.


	14. Chapter 14:Meetings

Aronovich Malenkov, sixty third floor manager, waited in the elevator as it rose up to the desired destination. Standing next to him was the garrison Lieutenant for the floor, a man named Boggs who did not want to be in a confined space with Malenkov for even twenty seconds, let alone a whole meeting. But since it was time for another District Management Meeting, all the floor managers and all the floor garrison lieutenants have to gather into a conference room so that President Coin can know for sure how the floors of District 13 are running. While the meetings were originally meant to be collaborative, President Coin has surrounded herself with either blindly loyal followers or yes men.

One hundred and ninety six of the most powerful people in District 13 sat around a large conference table. For each of the sixty five floors of District 13 was one Floor Manager, his secretary, and one Floor Garrison Lieutenant. At the head if the circular table was a The Throne Of The Proletariat (renamed from "Throne Of The People" after this title was deemed inappropriate), upon which sat the President of District 13.

The surface of the table was covered with a seal bearing the symbol of Bolshevism's most recent descendent ideology; Proletarianism. The seal of Proletarianism was a hammer standing strait up and down, superimposed over two sickles that cross to form an X, with a bundle of blood red wheat on the left side and a bundle of blood tipped arrows on the right side. The shape of the seal border was not circular, but rather had ridges along the side akin to those in a gear or cog. Written on the gear, and winding around the whole seal, were the words "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

The walls surrounding the meeting hall were made of a sleek metal that looked much like obsidian. The walls were separated into segments by steel columns, and on the side of the wall behind The Throne Of The Proletariat was a large mural detailing from left to right the history of their ideology from the birth of Karl Marx to the sealing off of the District 13 fallout gates. Well maintained, the mural looked almost the same as when it was painted sixty years ago.

Alma Coin, President of District 13 and General Secretary of the World Committee of the Proletariat, spoke the opening words of the meeting.

"It has been four months, and I think you all know what that means. I have already read them, but I will still hear the reports from you now. Once I know what is going on in each floor, those of you the also hold a commission will thoroughly explain the details the details of your goings on. Then we can act towards the common good."

The reports were almost the same as always. The whole of the Floor Reports went something like this.

A soldier went rogue and massacred children at the school on floor 5

There was a widespread case of food poisoning on floor 7

The power outage on floor 12 is in its third week.

There is a rat outbreak on floor 15.

There was a riot in the cafeteria on floor 17; sixty seven civilians and five soldiers died

There was a riot in the hallway on floor 18; thirty two civilians and seven soldiers died

There were massed protests outside the cafeteria on floor 20; the garrison had to place the whole floor on lockdown

There was a massive riot in the cafeteria on floor 23; and in order to prevent an escalation into rebellion the lieutenant had to seal off the cafeteria and used nerve gas to turn the whole cafeteria into a gas chamber. All seven thousand civilians which included women and children, as well as sixty three soldiers and seven officers in the cafeteria, lost their lives

There is a rat infestation on floor 27

Part of a sector was flooded due to broken sewer pipes on floor 29; forty five civilians were displaced and three died

The hunger strike on floor 34 has caused people on that floor to passively resist; productivity on that floor fell by 74%

There was a riot on floor 37 that lasted for three days and is presumed to have killed two thousand civilians and thirteen soldiers

Someone illegally spreading religious sentiment on floor 41 continues to escape detection despite the bounty on his or her head

The metal welders on floor 45 are on strike, demanding better wages and refusing to continue work until their demands are met

A serial killer on floor 49 has just murdered his twenty forth victim

A fire broke out on floor 57, killing three hundred and forty seven civilians

A sector on floor 65 collapsed into an undetected cavern below, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians and hundreds of soldiers.

After hearing all this, and commending the garrison lieutenant of floor 23, Alma Coin them heard from the commissioners.

The Commissioner Of The Workers Revolution gave bad news; attempts to foment revolution abroad have not been going well and so far zero successes have been seen.

The Commissioner Of War had better news; the District 13 Proletarian Army was the biggest it has ever been and District 13 is virtually impregnable.

The Commissioner Of Propaganda also had good news in the form of a successful experiment; blaring propaganda slogans and speeches from speakers in the hallways of Floor 20 really make the people docile, but he still felt Alma Coin should grant permission to distribute a newspaper. Any paper lost would be more than made up for in a content populace. President Coin decided to consider it.

The Commissioner Of Agriculture states that using ground up animal bones in the flour makes bread baking much mire efficient. However, the preserved food storage is nearly full and they could due good to increase rations or sell off some food in exchange for raw materials they could not get themselves. President Coin decided to exchange food for raw materials, but not to increase rations.

The Commissioner of Genetic Correction, Aronovich Malenkov, was able to report that the genetic make up of District 13 was slowly changing and that inbreeding was at he lowest it has been all year.

The Commissioner Of Finance had more bad news; there was little money left after maintaining the district and constructing nuclear warheads.

The Commissioner Of Internal Security had the worst news of all; riots are flaring up and will only get worse.

President Alma Coin said only this: "Those of you that are Floor Managers, do what you think is best to solve the problem on your floor. As for the national problems, I will compile a written report detailing specific instructions on how is nation is to be run. We can not give up just because a few people feel like rioting. Now, let's get on with business ..."

* * *

><p>During the interval, one hour of rest between the lengthy meeting, Boggs was sitting down and rubbing his temples. He hated these meetings; they were not collaborative like they should be and he was tired of putting on his yes-man face.<p>

He could not wait to get as far away from this hellhole as possible.


	15. Chapter 15:Someone Familiar

While Katniss Everdeen and her husband Cato Hardley were putting on a good show of adapting to life in District 13, someone who has already met the former is adapting perfectly to the place he would call home for the duration of his mission.

The Operative from District 13 rested during one of the times when did not have to work. It was dinner time, and he would not have to do more of his work until tomorrow morning.

The sixteen year old specimen he brought back from District 12 impressed those above resulted in The Operative being reassigned the very next day to District 11 for an assassination; a chance to impress his boss further.

Within six weeks an operative under the employment of the Capitol disappeared into the fertilizer and all the information he gathered found its ways into the hands of District 13. Having proven his worth, his next task was the assassination of Headpeacekeeper Romulus Thread.

That is why The Operative was in District 2, sitting in an abandoned hunting cabin in the part of the woods within the outer fence, drinking his bottled water and eating nutrition packets.

The place where The Operative would find his target was only a walking distance of eight hours out of the woods and down the first road he saw. The target is on a leave of absence from the district he is in charge of and will not return for a week.

To put it bluntly, this is the only chance The Operative will ever get.

Once it is sufficiently dark, The Operative dons his camouflage uniform designed to blend perfectly with the woods specific to District 2. In his hands he holds a sniper rifle, and around his waist is a knife.

He walks out of the woods and down the road, trekking to the great mansion. Romulus Thread had been invited as the plus-one to join in the celebration of Enobaria's birthday; an offer he could not very well refuse. This gave The Operative the chance of a lifetime to snuff out this threat to Proletarianism Once and for all.

Not that The Operative was concerned with ideology; he honestly sees what he does as nothing more than a job to preform, a niche to fill. His boss made sure he was not a slave to fanaticism; as covert operatives would have to see things behind the curtains of censorship, things that disprove the principles of key Proletarianism and would dissolution a more zealous operative to the point of desertion or defection. This is not to say The Operative was disloyal; he was deeply loyal to Alma Coin out of respect and having been taken care of. This loyalty was to leader rather than ideology, and he would still support her if she was not a Proletarian. If Coin were a Fascist, or a Democracy supporter, or a Queen, The Operative would kill her targets all the same.

Now he was just outside the fence of the victors village, an actual village just three miles past the outskirts of the District 2 Central City. Another target to kill, another chance to prove his worth and earn a slightly better niche.

Unfortunately for The Operative, his instructions were crystal clear that a poisoned syringe be used. While this would make the Headpeacekeepers death look natural, it would also mean that he had to go in close as his syringe gun can not penetrate glass panes. He would have to kill Thread the old fashioned way.

The Operative used his high strength wire cutters to get bast the fence, which was not electrified because it is not the outer fence. Next, after climbing through the hole in the fence, he was inside the Victor's Village.

So far so good.

He crawled up trough the grass and flowers, not stopping until he was close to the outdoor celebration. People were gathered around the swimming pool in the backyard of Enobaria's Victor Mansion. Nobody was swimming, just enjoying a nice barbecue and catching up with old friends and family. It was nice but not exactly excessive. A nice party; a party like this would never be allowed in District 13.

Now, thought The Operative, Now I wait.

And so he waited. He waited silently and patiently in the bushes while the people had fun. Not only was Romulus Thread and Enobaria there, but so were a couple other significant people.

Brutus, the proud Victor of District 2, was one of them. He was a large and muscular man, one struck down eleven tributes and several vicious mutts in the forty eighth Hunger Games. Brutus still kept up his daily exercise and combat training over twenty six years after winning the hunger games. It kept his body strong, his instincts fast, and his mind sharper. Since the games he has dueled in sword fights against seventy two people, following the rule that he would spare the opponent even if the other was playing to the death. Brutus, like other Victors, had a family and children. He had four children in total, and the older ones already grew up to become successful peacekeepers or managers of weapon factories. A loyal and triumphant success story, the Panem Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment never tires of telling the story of how a District 2 Victor named Brutus got everything he ever wanted just by following orders.

Two others at the party were Cashmere and her twin brother Gloss. Both won back-to-back Hunger Games, and have longs since captured the fascination of the three Career Districts and the Capitol. While many a Victors give back some of what they make, the Twins of District 1 have full on spearheaded the idea of philanthropy. By donating and encouraging other Victors to do the same, these two ensured that the poorer parts of the career districts still come off as wealthy compared to merchant classes of non-career districts. Banding together with other victors, they funded numerous public work and building projects. They still find time to have families and children (especially Gloss, who's wife gives birth to another child of his every two years). Because of these acts of giving back, Cashmere and Gloss are revered in all three Career Districts and outright beloved and hero worshipped in District 1. Needless to say, the people of District 1 knew what they were doing when they pulled together money for the gigantic electrum statue of the two twins that stand in the District square. These two die-hard loyalists are essentially District 1 royalty, and they know it.

Also present at the celebration was Horatio, a muscular and hearty Victor from District 4. Unlike most Victors, he does not often stick around. He is usually leading explorations and expeditions into the uninhabited northern region that Panem owns but does not use. His spirit of adventure helped Panem in both scientific and industrial ways. Scientifically, the specimens he found in the untamed wilderness proved to have scientific applications. Industrially, he is always able to travel on foot and map out a more efficient path for the railroads. Despite being absent often, Horatio was still able to donate age have a family in between the times in between adventures.

Another victor present at the party was, and he was also from District 4. Finnick is a victor who has been popular with the Capitol ever since he won at the age of fourteen. While nobody but him knows, he acquired sensitive information over the years through unorthodox methods. While wearing the facade of loyalty, Finnick has a black box of information and evidence (both photographic and otherwise) that he could release to the public if he ever found a way and a desire to destroy the reputation (and cause the suicide) of many tens or even hundreds of Capitol citizens. That he has this information is unknown, just as his motive for engaging in numerous ... encounters.

There were many more victors present, more than The Operative could count. All were from career districts; not because the others were not invited but because the victors of non-career districts did not show up either due to lack of permission or lack of desire. Not that it mattered to The Operative, his target was here ant that is what mattered.

In fact, Romulus Thread was right in front of The Operative at this very moment. Thread did not notice him, and this gave him an advantage. While the HeadPeacekeeper talked with Horatio about politics, The Operative carefully aimed his poison dart gun. Since Thread was in the full dress uniform he often wears in public (due to the belief that a peacekeeper should not be out in public without uniform), The Operative would have to get a headshot. He could escape in the confusion, and the dissolving dart would ensure no evidence was left to suggest anything other than Thread having a stroke as a result of being overworked.

The Operative pointed his gun, and pulled the trigger.

It was jammed.

Jammed? No, thought The Operative, it can not be jammed!

But it was jammed, and Thread heard the clicking sound of a jammed sniper rifle. Thread turned around and pulled the squatting The Operative face first out of the bushes and into clear view. This got the attention of others.

"Assassins!"

The Operative struggled, panicked with mortal terror. He did not know if he were supposed to run or if he should swallow the cyanide pill or if he should try to fight them off. The Operative choked, and lost the opportunity to do anything.

Thread ripped the sniper rifle out of The Operative's hands, and proceeded to bash his head with it.

Before The Operative lost conciseness, he wondered if anyone would know he ever existed.

Thread did not kill him, but he did contact the Peacekeepers from the phone. The Headpeacekeeper know that assassins have secrets the Capitol might want to know.

What is known is that The Operative failed, and might possibly have to pay for this failure with his life.

Such is the live of a Covert Operative.


	16. Chapter 16: Not the same as archery

**Bang!**

**Bang!**

**Bang!**

Katniss fired the pistol in her hand until she ran out of bullets. After practicing all morning, she had been able to hit the outer ring of the bull's eye.

Lieutenant Boggs and Dr. Aurelius were able to convince Floor Manager Malenkov to let them have the appointments at Boggs's apartment. They were able to do this by claiming that Katniss and Cato were beginning to come around to the Proletarian way of thinking, and were especially interested in the District 13 army. If the sessions were held in Bogg's apartment, he claimed, then he could use demonstrations and personal possessions to better tell them about his service oversees.

The Floor Manager, imagining that a loyal couple would raise their children to be zealous supporters of Proletarianism, agreed to everything Boggs requested. Even letting him show the superiority of District 13 weapons and techniques through demonstration, as well as teaching Dr. Aurelius how to use a gun (to demonstrate how Proletarianism made the brain learn faster, of course).

Now that Katniss and Cato had been preemptively deprogrammed, they had to learn to actually fight; a skill they would need if they wanted to escape. Dr. Aurelius still educated them; but the time spent learning would be held of what it usually was.

In order to keep the bugs from hearing their conversations, a radio player Boggs owns is continually playing a constant stream of propaganda songs. Some of the songs that can be heard in District 13 are dated and date all the way back to the Bolshevik revolution of old, while others are new and were recently written by Proletarians of District 13. Of course, none of the writers of these propaganda songs knew their works would be used to help people get _away_ from Proletarianism.

Noticing that Katniss was having trouble overcoming the recoil, Boggs went over to her to help. He whispered so that his words could not be heard over the music except by Katniss.

"Katniss, you need to hold the gun like this. See? You use the handgun's sight to shoot. There, like that. Good."

After reloading, Katniss fired the handgun three more times and on the second shot was able to get the middle ring. Shooting a gun completely different from using a bow and arrow; the differences were too numerous to list. However, a bullet will kill the enemy just as surely as an arrow.

The first time Katniss fired an arrow was when she was seven years old. Her father took her out into the woods on a hunting trip, and was even willing to let her shoot an arrow with his bow. Since it was her first shot, she aimed for nothing in particular and hit the mark completely. His father tousled her hair gently and assured her that she would someday be as good an archer as he was. Mr. Everdeen was did not stay in the land of the living long enough to see his prediction become a reality. Nor was he around to see his daughter get taken away to a nearly unknown place, nor was he around to see his daughter get married to a professional warrior. Mr. Everdeen's guiding voice was stilled years ago, and now his daughter has only its echo.

After every two hour, they would switch off. When it became Cato's turn, he picked up the gun and fired. Every single bullet hit it's mark with near perfection. The training Cato received also extended to firearms. It was wise to have at least one skill to fall back on, and the Peacekeeper Armed Forces were always hiring.

Seeing how skilled Cato was with a handgun made Katniss get the gnawing suspicion that he was a Career or a Peacekeeper. It is safe to say she did not think highly of either of those professions (while she did consider a Peacekeeper named Darius her friend, she felt that because he was lax he was did not count as a peacekeeper). Still, whenever she was about to ask Cato if he were a Career or a Peacekeeper, something inside her stopped her from asking.

After Cato was able to get round after round of ammunition out, his hour was over and he handed the gun to Katniss. She tried shooting, but can not yet get hit the center of the bull's eye target.

Cato walked up to her and whispered "Here, I'll help you."

Though Katniss did not want help (that would imply she couldn't do it herself), today was the first day she ever fired a gun and she knew she needed help.

He held her hands while she shot, so as to keep the gun steady. His hands were warm and firm, but he did not hold her hands in a way that caused pain.

**Bang!**

**Bang!**

**Bang!**

The bullet hit the bull's eye.

"Good. Now see if you can do it again."


	17. Chapter 17:Allies, friends, or lovers?

So far Katniss Everdeen and Cato Hardley have been in District 13 for seven weeks. They have had to spend 49 days away from their homes. They have had to spend one thousand, one hundred and seventy six hours breathing stale subterranean air and never seeing the sun. They had to spend seventy thousand, five hundred and sixty minutes following the same schedule every single day with only the periodic execution or speech or to break up the monotony. Neither of them have seen the sun or felt natural light on their skin in over four million, two hundred and thirty three thousand, and six hundred seconds.

They both were being educated to be immune to the lies of the Proletariat, and to fight their way out of it should their escape require combat. Neither of them knew when their escape would be, but they knew they could not wait for it.

The irony is that waiting is what they would have to do.

Right now Katniss lies awake in the bed. Lying next to her is Cato, who asleep. Neither of them are dressed, and they are both exhausted from recent exertion. Neither one of them wanted to be taken in for artificial fertilization, so they copulated forty minutes ago. The promise Cato made Katniss (that he would not cause her pain or that she could trust him) was still in effect, and Cato still kept his word.

Katniss is still unsure how she feels about Cato's ... performance ... or how she feels about Cato as a whole. This having been only her second time, Katniss is still not fully used to this level of intimacy.

On one hand, Katniss only ... cooperated ... with Cato because they were both being forced to by a third party that kidnapped them both from their respective homes. Katniss felt that Cato was cold, ill-tempered, and sometimes Katniss even thought he seemed emotionless.

Cato held his head high, walked his full height, and carried himself with a sort of pride that seemed as though it were backed up by something that Katniss could not quite put her finger on. He was already talented with firearms, he was muscular enough that he could snap someone's throat if he so wished, and he walks and dresses in a regimented manner. Katniss was concerned that Cato might be a career or peacekeeper. Katniss knew that if Cato was a peacekeeper or a career, he would not be a nominal one like Darius. The possibility of Cato being a career is what bothered Katniss the most; she did not think highly of Career tributes or peacekeepers. Could she ever accept that one was her husband?

On the other hand, Cato made good his promise not to hurt her during copulation and for a few seconds of it Katniss may or may not have felt something that _might_ have been what could be called pleasure (not that she would admit if she did). While Cato can more often than not have a cold personality, Katniss did acknowledge that this was something she had in common with him. Even so, he has shown himself willing to protect Katniss and she does feel safer around him. If Katniss wanted to find out whether or not Cato was a Career, she could wait until they had both escaped.

While Cato was asleep, he pondered what he thought about his wife. He himself had never experienced intimacy at this level with anyone else, and it was still new to him.

Cato did not imagine his first time being in a prison cell in a district he long thought destroyed, nor did he imagine that he and his partner would be coerced into the act by a third party. Cato found Katniss to be stubborn and icy; in other words she was someone with whom he could relate. Cato liked that Katniss had a sort of fire in her, and that she did not accept her fate like many others would have. Since inhuman determination is a character trait Cato admires, he likes that it is something Katniss has.

That night, both thought that they were lucky to have eachother. Whether they would be more than allies was not yet sorted out; but they both knew they would help eachother.


	18. Chapter 18: Proletarian 'Justice'

Katniss and Cato walked down the hallway to the mess hall, where the leaders of District 13 intended for them to eat lunch. However, on this particular day, the people are not walking to their destinations in precise flows of grey.

Up ahead, Katniss and Cato heard the sound of screaming and shouting. Like the other bystanders they ran to the source of it. Before they could see what it was, they heard a high shriek and the sound of a skull crunching from impact with an unpainted concrete wall. More screaming and angry shouting, and it is quite clear that the screams are coming from a man in pain.

"Alright, everybody stand back! What is going on here?"

Two District 13 soldiers, one of whom was previously beaten to a pulp by Cato, walk up to the scene as the crowd steps back a bit. Now Katniss and Cato can clearly see what happened here.

The mangled remnants of a dead man lay clumped upon the floor as a testament to what the enraged fists of enough people could do. Laying to the right of the corpse is a man who is barley alive and is unlikely to live through the night; his bones were crushed and broken from the hammering of fists and the stomping of booted feet upon him. Standing to the left of the broken remnants of the dead man are six District 13 civilians; their hands are bloodied all the way to their wrists, and blood was splattered on their shoes.

The guard barked his question, "What happened here?"

One of the assailants, the self appointed spokesperson for the impromptu gang, decided to answer the guard's question.

"He was a deviant, A pervert, an unnatural. We stopped this abhorrent from degrading the Proletariat."

Another one of the assailants added on, "We hate the unnaturally oriented just as much as the state does."

The guards do not look horrified at what they see or what they just heard; the assaulters were repeating what most Propaganda clips on the topic have called for.

However, the guards were somewhat annoyed by this act. What the bystanders saw as two bloodied bodies, the two guards saw as paperwork and cleanup and not being able to take the credit for arresting the two men.

"These men are unnaturally oriented?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, I see only one criminal here. You six, move along." He then turned and shot the dying man in the head.

As the two guards began waving for the bystanders to get moving again, one of the, mumbled about how "there's a proper way to do things". He probably would have preferred if the two victims died on an operation table or in a crematorium oven than in the hallway.

As the bystanders walked around the puddle of blood, they were not horrified. Eyebrows were not even raised. Opinions ranged from happiness at having received some free entertainment on the way to their next location, to frustration at the backlog.

Katniss and Cato have stopped being surprised by these things four mess hall executions ago. People getting stomped to death in the hallway is just another fact of life in Distrixt 13. This is not to say they did not mind; this event intensified their hatred of District 13 and Proletarianism. Though they could not do anything now, they both added this lynching to the mental list of reasons they are escaping, and reasons why they will kill as many District 13 soldiers as necessary to escape.

So far the list includes:

Being kidnapped and taken to District 13

The arranged marriage

The starving man who fell dead in the hallway two weeks ago

The student at the school who was beaten to death with a chalkboard pointer

Many more than they could count in a year

When Katniss and Cato ate their lunch, they felt that the bland and flavorless food tasted even less digestible than normal. Their grey uniforms were more uncomfortable than normal. The lights felt less natural.

Like a steel trap, they waited. They were constantly in wait of the time when they could pounce on the first chance to leave this hellhole and never return.


	19. Chapter 19:Waiting

As Dr. Aurelius read the results to the political geography test, he was pleased with the results. Katniss and Cato were able to remember almost all of the major countries without error (apart from minor and isolated mistakes, like Cato misspelling China as 'Shina' or Katniss listing the Middle East as a continent and not a sub continent).

Teaching them geography was no problem, as Boggs had access to paper maps as an after result of being a high ranking military officer. Even if they had no foreseeable way to reach any of these places, Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs both agreed that their two students must have a sense of curiosity and critical thought. Teaching them that there are people and places on the other side of the two oceans is one way to do this, as is teaching them world history and foreign beliefs and ideologies (so that the histories make sense).

However, not all questions could be answered. While Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs are both intelligent people on their own (and even more intelligent collectively), they can not answer every question.

For some questions, they disagree and can not provide an answer for their two students. One example is the conduct of the late Lazarus Coin. While Lieutenant Boggs holds that he was a reasonable ruler who's only political fault was allowing his successors to wrap his views, Dr. Aurelius believes that Lazarus Coin, while not as power hungry as his granddaughter, was still a tyrannical murderer who slaughtered anyone who disagreed with him. Whether or not they are both right depends; as it can be argued that anyone looks like a reasonable leader compared with Alma Coin.

For other questions, neither of them can decide the answer themselves. They usually solve this by presenting all theories as neutrally as they can and allowing Katniss and Cato to decide for themselves. One example is belief in religion; something punishable by death in both continental Panem and District 13. When learning that many people believe that one or many deities exist, one of the two students asked if they do.

Since neither Lieutenant Boggs nor Dr. Aurelius have a firm answer to this question (apart from "I don't know"), and they did not have enough to have information to thoroughly study this (as none of the religious texts studied by the District 13 intellectual society were able to be saved from the military raid). They just said that this is a question with many different answers and that they need to decide that answer for themselves; even if they told them that one or another (or none) was correct, than it would still be up to them to decide if they believe it.

While neither of the students could decide on an answer to that question just yet, they did agree that they would look into this when they got the chance. Also, they would remain open to the possibilities.

Both within and outside of academic progression, Cato and Katniss were also fast in learning. One month of firearms training resulted in Katniss having capable accuracy, and Cato's prior training with a gun certainly helped. They were all itching for the chance to escape; the only thing they lacked was an opportunity.

While they waited for it, life went on as normal. Katniss and Cato labored in the workhouse, ate in the mess hall, and slept in a small bed. The time they spent with Lieutenant Boggs and Dr. Aurelius is the only patch of light for them to cling to. Because of this they constantly look forward to the hour each day when they can read notes and primary sources, study different subjects, and take tests on these. They also liked to learn how to fire a gun, use a combat knife (knife fighting is an area both Katniss and Cato are proficient at), and walking like District 13 soldiers do.

So Katniss and Cato sat in Dr. Aurelius's apartment, studying primary sources and silently sighing with relief when Dr. Aurelius hands them back their tests and they got most of the answers correct (even if Cato is curious as to how he misspell a five letter word).

As the days dragged on, they waited for the day when they could all escape from their hellhole. Katniss and Cato were to afraid to think about how the outside might have changed in their absence, or what happened to their loved ones while they were gone.


	20. Chapter 20:Nightmare

Katniss and Cato are both asleep, dressed in their clothes but still feeling the heat of the mutually shared body warmth. Katniss, however, was not having a what could be considered a good night; not even by her standards.

Her nightmare tonight was not the recurring one of her father's death, this bad dream was worse. In this mentally simulated scenario, Katniss sees how she imagined her mother and her sister Prim reacting to her disappearance. It was not a coherent dream, but rather a foggy and groggy haze.

First they were being lead into the square by Peacekeepers and receiving a firing squad execution. No sooner had the bullets rang and the blood poured out from their bodies did the fog of the subconscious shift the dream to a different area.

Now Prim and Mrs. Everdeen were not being shot to death; they were being starved to death. They were in the snow covered streets, ragged and emaciated and clothed in rags. Their eyes were sunken and empty of all emotion. Prim held out her hands in a cup to catch any spare change, but everybody who walked by refused to part with even one cent; Prim and Mrs. Everdeen were left to their fate.

The next sequence was one of District 12 in flames. Fires occasionally break out, and when they break out in the seam they can be devastating. The Everdeen family only experienced one neighborhood fire, and while the blaze did not even come close to their house Mr. Everdeen still made his whole family go to the woods until the fire was over. This time, neither he nor his oldest daughter was around to warn them. Katniss had to watch her home burn down while her family was trapped screaming inside.

A less extreme but still bothersome image was next. Prim was now thirteen. In the hallway of the dilapidated school, Prim was cornered by a gang of older children. After taunting her and blocking her escape route, they begin to verbally assault her before physically beating her into a bloodied mess. Bullies who picked on Prim in the past got a broken arm or a poisoned lunch (not enough to kill them, just to induce flue-like symptoms). This time Katniss could only watch powerlessly.

Before Katniss could see the end of this sequence, another one started. Prim staring out of the fence from within; then bursting into tears and asking no one present "Why did you abandon us?". There is only one thing worse than finding out that someone close to you died, and that is finding out that they never loved you.

* * *

><p>"Katniss, wake up."<p>

The hazy fog of the nightmare was mercifully lifted by the muscular but (for this situation) gentle hands of Cato Hardley. It is sleeping time in District 13, and the room is so pitch black that Katniss and Cato can just barley see each other's faces despite them being only inches away. Normally waking up from a nightmare is a good thing; it is not a good thing when you wake up to a worse nightmare.

Katniss began to speak, to say she had a nightmare. She could not get the words out. Katniss did not like to cry in front of people; she did not like to appear weak in front of anyone.

The despondence of the whole situation, of her captivity, it was too much Katniss at this moment.

She cried.

Cato simply wrapt his arms around her and held her close to provide the emotional comfort of a shoulder to lean on. This was something not covered in his career training, and try though he might his mind was unable to produce any comforting words to coo into her ear.

So he silently held her close and stroked her back while she cried herself back to sleep.

And that was enough.


	21. Chapter 21:The beginnings of a plan

Boggs sat in his apartment, going over a list of officials he could potentially use to help with his escape. He already had a list of people he could bribe, bully, or blackmail into helping him. But he needed to narrow it down. This was very difficult, as it is literally a matter of life and death.

President Alma Coin wanted herself surrounded by exactly two types of officials; Ultra-Loyal Yes Men who she could count on to carry out her orders to the letter, and Corrupt Bastards who she could bribe or blackmail into doing what she wants.

Floor Manager Lee Gofung (secret homosexual) ... maybe, he is cowardly enough to csve to blackmail

Floor Manager Hans Buria (embezzler) ... probably not, he is too powerful and would probably cause an 'accident'

Lieutenant Leona Kim (secret lesbian) ... probably she cares too much about her 'good name' to call a bluff

Floor Manager Alexei Stele (child molester) ... NEVER!

Security Secretary Chen Trotsky (father to secret hermaphrodite) ... most likely, but precaution should be taken to ensure he does not snap and pull a murder-suicide

General Nikita Guevara (food hoarder) ... no, his position is not really helpful

On and on, Boggs went over the names on his list. As he did this, he narrowed it and crossed off names. If someone was not trustable, or held a useless position, or Boggs refused to even be in the same room as that person, than the name was crossed off.

After a few hours, Boggs developed a headache. Groaning, he pushed himself up from his desk and walked to his restroom to fish an aspersion out of the cabinet.

This time he did not notice the blood that was stained on the bathroom floor, and it is a good thing. Seeing those bloodstains always makes Lieutenant Boggs become doleful and full of sadness.

It is because they are a reminder of how evil the District 13 high command can be. Lieutenant Boggs can not stand to escape from District 13 and leave behind every bloodstained inch of the place.


	22. Chapter 22:Marching

Lieutenant Boggs and Dr. Aurelius watched as Katniss and Cato walked back and forth. Boggs shook his head when they finished, indicating that he felt they did not walk in a convincing manner. They would need to walk like the bodyguards of a District 13 Lieutenant or else they would surely attract attention.

Try thought she might, Katniss was not getting the habit of army walking; it was too march-like and difficult.

Cato's problem was quite the opposite, being that he marched too well. This is a problem because the peacekeeper marching style is very different than that of District 13 soldiers, and he will stick out like a sore thumb. It would not be good if he gave himself away as a career: he already looked too much like the 'Capitolite Devil' from propaganda videos.

Cato and Katniss watched District 13 propaganda videos during these cessions, and tried their best to mimic the mechanical marching of the grey clad soldiers. Boggs had an old projector, and as such could show them films.

Their uniforms were colored camouflage grey, with the helmet and belt being a solid dark grey, and the boots being black. The helmet, unlike Peacekeeper helmets, did not come with any type of visor; though its belt did have an easily reachable gas mask that could be used if necessary. The utility belt also included a combat knife, a whip, a canteen, and slots to hold magazines of gun ammunition. The undergarments were more comfortable than those of District 13 civilians. The uniform, like all District 13 uniforms, was unisex.

After a while, Lieutenant Boggs told them that they could take a break and practice their marksmanship with semiautomatic machine guns. Cato was able to hit the target with near perfect accuracy, and while Katniss was nowhere near as skilled with firearms her marksmanship was improving rapidly. After placing holes in the right places in the targets, they now studied.

When the two students learned about a certain topic, they started with a review of what they already learned on the subject. They listened to the two teachers earnestly, and were encouraged to ask questions. Back in their respective homes, Katniss and Cato were discouraged by their teachers from asking questions. Lieutenant Boggs and Dr. Aurelius were the first people to encourage them to ask 'why?'.

Lieutenant Boggs and Dr. Aurelius enjoyed teaching their two students, as well as watching as these two pupils grew intellectually with each lesson. A fire had been ignited in their minds, one which grew and expanded and could be neither contained nor placated.

It is true that the best way to keep someone under domination is to keep them in the dark, to keep them uneducated, to keep their flame unignited. If they have nothing to compare their situation to, than they will accept it with a stoic resignation. Once they see even a glimpse of how things can be better, than the spell can be broken and the domination will be defied.

Katniss and Cato were determined to escape, as were Boggs and Dr. Aurelius. Since Boggs was bringing his son, then as soon as the plan was cemented the five of them would be leaving.


	23. Chapter 23:Bun in the oven

Katniss and Cato walked to the office of Dr. Kurtz. The moment their schedule tattoo read 'medical office', their day was already ruined.

They suspected that this had something to do with the way Katniss has been feeling recently. For the past two days she has been experiencing nausea and fatigue, as well as minor back pains. Cato was worried that she had come down with a sickness.

Them having a doctor's appointment has not yet been categorized as good or bad news. They just walked into Dr. Kurtz office and hoped his level of unpleasantness would not be on a level too difficult to manage.

As they walked down the hallway, Katniss began to feel nauseous. Cato stopped walking and let her hold his arm to keep steady.

"Are you okey?"

"Yeah, I think it passed."

"What do you think is making you feel this way?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I hope we find out so we can fix it."

"Cato, are you worried?"

This was a surprise to Cato; he actually was concerned for Katniss's well being. He could either deny it proudly, or humbly admit to it. He took a third option.

"Let's just get going; you know they don't like us being late."

Katniss teased back. "Just as long as you don't carry me in you're arms."

"You mean like _this_?" As Cato said this, he lifted Katniss up and carried her in his arms. Needless to say she was less than amused.

"Put me down!"

"Something wrong?"

"Put me down! I'm serious, this isn't funny."

"It seems funny to me."

"Cato I swear if you don't-"

"Fine, fine. Whatever you say." Cato placed her on the ground.

"That wasn't funny."

"Even you have to admit it was a little funny."

"Nope."

"Okey than, you'll get over it."

"No I won't."

But she did. In twenty minutes, she was no longer upset at him.

They walked down the corridors. As they walked past, they saw a guard painting over some fresh graffiti. While the guard already painted over so much that Katniss and Cato could not see what it said, they suspected it was rebellion. They were right, as it said: _DOWN WITH THE PROLETARIAT! _

They ignored this and walked to to the office of a doctor whom they hated. They wondered how long it was until their appointment with a doctor and a lieutenant, both of whom they admired.

They arrived at the medical office and waited.

Dr. Kurtz walked through the door, obviously in a good mood. He has reason to be, considering the fact that he was to receive a ration increase.

"You are probably wondering why you are here?"

This irritated the patent and her husband, who vocalized his irritation.

"Yes, now tell me what's making my wife sick."

"O, nothing to worry about; it seems you two can follow orders."

Now Katniss spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"You're pregnant."

These words made the room silent.

Katniss became overwhelmed, as though the walls were closing in around. Everything disappeared, and she breathed more rapidly. Her legs began to shake, and she fell to her knees. She broke down, weeping bitterly and sorrowfully. Her world fell apart around her. Afterwards she would reprimand herself for allowing herself to appear weak in front of someone she hated.

All while this was happening, Cato stood frozen with wide eyes. It was as though his mind turned off. For a long moment he was frozen like a statue; utterly paralyzed.

While Dr. Kurtz watched this, his smile broke into a large grin; he gets an increase in food for each child conceived and born under his watch, but this sadness is an unexpected but entirely welcome surprise present. Dr. Kurtz always did love being the bearer of bad news.

As he droned on about how the prenatal care would go, Katniss and Cato were unable to hear anything.


	24. Chapter 24:Sharing the news

Dr. Aurelius was sitting in his apartment, reading a dusty old book while he waited for his two students to arrive. The book he was reading a recipe book; as strange as it sounds, one of the things Dr. Aurelius looks forward to on the other side is being able to eat food that does not taste of metal or dust or cement. While he is smart enough to know that the main reasons are freedom and safety from persecution, he also is wise enough to know that the simple things should not be forgotten.

Boggs was in the other room, teaching his son how to tie knots (a skill Boggs learned while in the compulsory youth program). While he did this, he noticed how his son's eyes are the same as his wife's. This memory made Boggs doleful, as his wife is no longer with him. Sometimes when he closes his eyes or daydreams, he can see his wife with her beautiful brown eyes and bright smile.

"Pa?" Lieutenant Luthier Boggs was brought out of his musing by his son.

"Yes Drew?" His full name is Dragomir Boggs, he was named after his grandfather and indirectly named after a long dead Marxist revolutionary who lived in Gaza during the dark age.

"Can you show me how to tie this type of knot?"

"Of course. First you double a section of the line and form a loop in the line, than you pass the free end up through the loop forming a double loop below it, than you pass over the double loop and continue up to top of eye, than finally you seat the knot by pulling on the double loop while holding the standing line."

"Oh, okey. Thanks for helping me."

While Boggs showed his son how to tie a bowline on a blight, he wondered when his two students would arrive.

Finally, a buzzing can be heard at the door. Katniss and Cato were outside, but ey did not look nearly as happy to see them as they normally do.

When Katniss and her husband sat down, she told her two teachers what the source of her sadness was.

"I'm pregnant."

While Katniss did not want to have children, it is not because she did not like children. On the contrary, it is the opposite. She knew if she ever had a child, she would love and care for it with all her heart; and that she would not be able to deal with the powerlessness of watching him or her grow up in either of the two worlds she knew. She did not want her child to grow up as a subject of the Capitol, living in poverty and running the risk of being stabbed to death on television. Nor did Katniss want her child to grow up as a subject of the Proletariat, never being allowed to have control over his or her own destiny or being allowed to see the sun or even taste speak his or her mind in the comfort of home. Katniss did not want her child to suffer, and if it were born into either world than it probably would.

Cato was still numb, as he did not how to feel. He did not know the first thing about taking care of a child, and did not know if he could protect his own. He intended to protect his wife and their child to the maximum of his ability, but Cato was confronted with the possibility that it might not be enough. As a Career, he was taught and trained to rely on himself and his own determination to overcome any obstacle; he now realized he would need to use that determination now more than ever.

Dr. Aurelius and Lieutenant Boggs were able to provide the necessary support at this moment. The latter spoke first.

"Do not worry. The whole process is perfectly natural, including how you both feel right now. I promise we will help you through this."

Katniss wrote down her real concern on a piece of paper so the bus would be oblivious to it. "But I can't have a child; not here."

Boggs continued, also writing his response down. "She's right; not here. We'll need to jump ahead with the escape plan. It will take a few weeks to set up the rest of the plan. We have only one month, and possibly a week after that, before her condition becomes noticeable. Don't worry Katniss, you're son will be born in the outside."

Boggs was extra concerned, because he knew that children who were deemed 'life unworthy of life' were euthanized at birth.

After a while, Katniss calmed herself down enough to ask a question. She asked it vocally. "What can I expect while being pregnant?"

While Dr. Aurelius went to retrieve a book on the subject, Boggs tried to recall from memory what his wife went through. While Boggs was starting to form a sentence, the good doctor placed a dusty book on the table in front of Katniss.

"This should answer the biological aspect."

"How am I supposed to read all this in one sitting?"

"Don't worry, it's not that hard to read. If you or Cato have any questions about this, I'll gladly answer them. I am a doctor, so I have a basic understanding of it."

"Okey."

So Katniss and Cato began to read. They had no trouble getting bast the techinical terms, and the thanks for that go to Dr. Arealius and his biology lessons.

While they were doing this, Boggs made plans of how to proceed with his plan next.


	25. Chapter 25:Pulling the first string

Lieutenant Boggs sat in the living room of Leona Kim, Garrison Lieutenant of floor 42. She arrived from the kitchen, carrying a cigarette box in her hand. She took two out, lit hers, and handed Boggs the other one.

Leona Kim was a thirty one year old garrison lieutenant who has been in her position for five years and counting. She had Auburn hair and brown eyes.

"You know, these ones are made with real tobacco: from the Carib islands."

Boggs just nodded, not wanting to talk about or remember that failed attempt to install Proletarianism. His most vivid memory of that place is the brutality of and atrocities committed by the guerrillas he was a military advisor for.

Fortunately, Kim went strait to the point. "So, what brings you here?"

Boggs already knew what he was going to say. "Is it safe to talk?"

Kim smiled, "Sure, just let me just turn on the radio."

She turned on the radio, the radio that was broken in such a way as to disrupt bug transmission. Once the low drone of military songs started playing, the bugs were temporarily unable to pick up any signal. The song that was playing was another Proletarian song.

She smiled as a result of her good mood. "What do you need?"

"I need a favor from you."

Her eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I need you to do something for me. If you do than it, I'll be sure to support you should you request promotion."

"And what if I don't want to 'help' you?"

"Well, I don't think you have a choice."

"What makes you say that? We are both Lieutenants."

Boggs smirked, as she fell right into his trap. Now all he had to do is spring it.

"If you don't, than our coworkers would be interested to learn about you're relationship with a corporal woman under you're command."

Her eyes grew wide with worry, "You wouldn't."

"Yes I would. I'll tell everyone, and they'll turn against you. Those under you, the ones who want you're position, they'll take you down and Coin will have to make an example of you."

"You son of a-"

"You have been willing to send countless men and woman to the ovens; I don't think you have any moral high ground left to stand on."

Angrily, Leona scowled, "Fine, I'll give you what you came here for."

She began to loosen the buttons on her uniform, and when Boggs realized what she assumed he came for, Boggs shook his head.

"Don't flatter yourself, that's not what I want."

This was a relief for Leona, as she did not want to submit in this way again.

About three years ago, Floor Manager Hans Beria (a man with wealth and power who is highly adapted to using both to get what he wants ) threatened to reveal Leona's secret if demands were not met. She met those demands and allowed Hans to bed her. Considering the lethal policy on her orientation, it was a life or death matter.

"Oh. Than what do you want?" She began to button her uniform back up.

"In seventeen days precisely, I want you to request that Dr. Aurelius and I come to you're floor to give advice."

"Okey."

"Remember; if you don't make this request in seventeen days, than you're secret will be revealed."

"Is that seventeen days after today, or seventeen days including today?"

"Seventeen days _after_ today."

"Okey. If you don't mind my asking, what do you want from this?"

"I do mind you asking, and I don't think its you're business."

"Will you recommend me for commissioner of defense when the position becomes available?"

This was really putting his neck out; as he would be executed if she did not do a good job in the position. Then again, he would not be around long enough for the position to become available. Boggs was willing to promise things he could not keep; as lying to officials is how he stayed alive as long as he did.

"Sure."


	26. Chapter 26:Pulling the second string

**Authors note: Good people are not always nice ...**

* * *

><p>"No, get someone else to help you."<p>

This conversation was not going well; the usually cowardly Guofung haso decided that today would be a good day to be rigid. Boggs retorted, surprised that Floor Manager Lee Guofung grew a backbone since the last meeting.

"Do you really want people to find out about you're boyfriend. You're political opponents would rip you apart, you would loose your career and your life.

Lee Guofung is the Manager of Floor 31, he has held his position for a decade and it is clear that he only got where he was by riding the coattails of of his older cousin. When his cousin was assassinated by Hans Beria (for appearing like he may someday become a powerful political rival), Mr. Guofung had already reached the position of Floor Manager.

He is usually know for being easily manipulated, so Boggs expected that he would agree to help without much effort. Unfortunately, today seems to be different.

"I don't care what you say, you don't have any evidence."

Boggs hated these type of officials; the people who practiced orientations or business practices that they are more than willing to execute other people for. The hypocrisy was especially bad in Guofung, who could not make a speech or even small talk without bursting into a tirade about how The Proletariat needed to 'root out it perverts, deviants, and other lame and malformed burdens'. He was the type of official Coin liked to have a few of; he publicly screamed all the right stuff, and he had enough dirt to be easily controllable. Blackmail is usually cheaper than bribery.

"Yes I do, and I'll use it if you don't do what I asked."

"The answer is no. Now stop asking."

No more mister nice guy; Boggs decided to try a different tactic.

Boggs stood up punched Guofung in the head; the punch was enough to knock him off his feet.

Before he was able to crawl off the ground, Boggs kicked him harshly in the stomach three or four times. He was coughing blood around the third kick.

Then he grabbed him heavy-handedly by the shirt, pulled him to his feet, and threw him against the wall. He slammed into the wall, and slumped down onto the floor.

While he lay sniveling against the corner, Boggs walked up to him and pressed the barrel of his gun against Guofung's forehead.

"Now you listen, and you listen good. If I tell the others, they'll have you thrown in an oven so fast it won't be funny. I could pull the trigger right now and everybody would consider me a hero for getting rid of one more of you're kind. Now, I don't really give the slightest fuck who or what you do in your spare time; but if you try double crossing me than I'll find you and shove a grenade down you're throat. Now, in eighteen days after today, you are to request that I come to your floor to give advice. If you do this, than we can forget about this whole mess and I might even support you if you run for a commissionership. Now, its very simple. Do. You. Understand?"

The cowering Guofung nodded quickly.

"Good. And don't think I won't know if you try to screw me over. Even if you run your mouth off and get me in trouble, I still have friends here who will make sure you receive and your boyfriend both receive a grizzly end."

Boggs was lying about having an assassin on that floor; sometimes it is necessary to bluff in order to get necessary help.

"Clean yourself up. If anyone asks what happened, you're wife is into rough stuff."

Boggs helped Guofung to his restroom so he could clean up. Than Boggs thanked him for the hospatiloty, wiped his boots on the floor mat, and left.

Two down.


	27. Chapter 27:Pulling the third string

Lieutenant Boggs was standing at the front door to the apartment of Chen Trotsky, Floor Manager to floor 14 and Security Secretary. After knocking at the door, he waited for the occupant to greet him.

Chen Trotsky opened the door, greeted Lieutenant Boggs, and invited him inside.

Chen Trotsky's apartment is luxurious by District 13 standards: it has four large refrigerators filled with food (some of which is imported), an ice box, two bedrooms, and a personal restroom that contains a shower that runs hot water as long as he wants it to.

It is much more that what Lieutenant Boggs has, but is woefully less than what is possessed materially by politicians Hans Beria and President Alma Coin.

Trotsky poured two glasses of non-alcoholic liquor, and handed one to Boggs. Boggs took his glass but did not drink it.

Trotsky went strait to the point, "So, what did you come here for?"

"I need a favor from you?"

"What do I get out of it? I will potentially my life in danger by helping you, so I need to know what I will get in return."

"What's your price?"

"Well, I intend to run for commissioner of defense. We can not all be as powerful as Hans Buria, so I will need political support."

Every politician in District 13 knew that Hans Buria was the person who would rule the place once Alma Coin kicked the bucket. What remains unknown is whether he will rule from behind the throne while using Coin's son as a puppet, or if Coin will just adopt him. Either way, Chen Trotsky would need a good position before Buria got the power to use give it away.

"Are you not worried about Hans?"

Trotsky chuckled, "I'll convince him I'm a supporter of him, that way I can backstab Hans if need be."

"Okey, will you do a favor for me than?"

"Depends what?"

"Fifteen days after today, request I come to the first floor to give advice. Also, get the security watch people to set a warning for twenty bunker busting nukes."

Trotsky smiled, "I see, you want a little confusion to make someone to disappear?"

"Precisely." Boggs just didn't mention that the person disappearing was him and his close friends.

"You have yourself a deal. Heck, maybe when I'm a commissioner you can have my old job."

"Yeah, maybe."

Or maybe he would not be there by that time.


	28. Chapter 28:Packing

Boggs and Dr. Aurelius were packing the backpacks they would need for their escape. These were military issued backpacks, so they would have to be space efficient.

Boggs and Dr. Aurelius had already photocopied every single page of every single book they own, along with every one of their photographs, documents, specimen slides, and any other piece of information they had. This way, their libraries could be kept on a flash drive. They of course had all this information on hundreds flash drives which would be hidden amongst the five escapers, so as to ensure that they will not lose any information if one flash drive were misplaced or destroyed.

Hacking into the computers to prevent them from being tracked was the easy part.

Apart from their information, there was many other things they would need for their journey. When they escaped, they would need to travel for about a week if they were to reach District 12: the nearest population center. Once there, they would have to find a way to print up everything on their flash drives. But first they would need to get there.

Katniss knew how to hunt with a bow and arrow, and could make a crude one if need be. However, they would need an assured supply of clean food and water. This meant they would have to have canned and dry food, as well as water bottles (in addition to the canteens they can carry on their persons).

They would need emergency flares, blankets, flint and steel (Katniss knew how to make a fire without it, but better to be safe than to be sorry), compasses, maps, and medicine.

Ammunition and grenades could be carried in separate ammo bags and on grenade belts respectively, so that problem was at least solved.

Right at this moment, Boggs and Dr. Aurelius had to take a break. They were exhausted, and still had a lot of work ahead of them. They communicated via sketch pad, with Boggs starting it by asking a question and passing it to Dr. Aurelius.

"Do you really think it will work?"

"It has to. We have no other choice."

"But if it fails than we die."

"We'll die regardless. Whether now or in twenty years. If we succeed than we'll be free. We won't have to live in fear anymore. I'd rather die than live another second in a District akin to Orwell's _1984_."

This was one of the books in their library, but Boggs and Aurelius both hoped that their story would end on a higher note than that one did.

"You're right. I want to take this gamble. I don't want my son to grow up here."

"He won't; he'll be free and grow up without Coin's control."

After a while, they 'said' nothing.


	29. Chapter 29:Big day tomorrow

Katniss and Cato lay in their bed. They could not sleep because of excitement that they would soon be escaping. However, this excitement is mixed with fear. Katniss was unable to find a position conductive to sleep, no matter how much she tossed or turned.

She and her husband had been training for the last sixteen days in a row, they now knew how to march like Lieutenants bodyguards, how to shoot handguns, how to shoot, District 13 machine guns, and how to stab someone to death with District 13 combat knives. They knew everything they would need to know to survive the escape attempt, and had combat experience befitting a huntress and a career. Yet they were still afraid.

Cato calmly whispered to her, "Are you scared?"

Katniss turned to face Cato, and answered his question. While at first she wanted to snap at him, she realized that he must be scared too.

"A little bit. Are you?"

"Kind of, but you don't need to be scared. I won't ever let anything bring you to harm."

"Why?"

"Maybe because I care about you."

They just left it at that. Cato held Katniss close to him, his arms wrapping around her. They just lay there until they fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Dragomir lay in his bed, listening to his father telling him a story.<p>

It is quite normal for a four year old child to have troubles sleeping, and it is equally normal for a four year old child to be afraid when there was a big day tomorrow. It is normal for someone to be afraid when they are going to try to escape from a prison, no matter how old he or she is. When all these things are combined, Boggs's four year old son really needs a story to get to sleep.

The story he told him was one of the very rare stories he brought back from the Carib wars that was actually heartwarming (as apposed to the numerous heart-wrenching ones that he will only tell Dragomir when he reaches the age of twenty).

"Well, once upon a time, on an island far far away, there was a warrior. His name was ... I think it was Luthier."

"That's you're name."

Lieutenant Boggs chuckled, "Yes, I guess it is. Anyway-"

"Is the story about you?"

"You are a smart kid, do you know that?"

"Continue with the story."

"Yes, yes, I almost got sidetracked. Anyway, when I was on the Carib island, I loved to swim. I could swim even better than a fish. One day, when me and the other warriors were sailing down a river in a sailboat, and it started to rain. It rained harder and harder, until one of the people on the boat fell overboard and was pulled under the water. The others were too afraid to go into the water after him, but I didn't even think if myself at that moment. I sprang into action and, pulling on a life jacket, jumped into the water. I pulled the drowning man out of the water and held onto the side of the boat with my other arm."

Boggs left out a few facts about that story, as telling them would have dampened the mood of the story. Lieutenant Boggs did not tell Dragomir that the sail boat had way too many people onboard than there should have been. Apart from that, the person who he rescued from drowning was a child-soldier; the commander actually told Boggs to let him drown, and Boggs was chastised for disobeying orders. Boggs also left out that the child soldier statistically went on to massacre entire villages, or get blown up by an artillery shell. Boggs without a doubt did not tell his son about the brutality there.

Still, Boggs saved someone from drowning, that much is true.

"Wow, that's amazing. What happened next?"

"What happened next? While, the brave warrior named Luthier went home and lived happily ever after."

Well, Boggs hoped that he would reach the 'happy ever after' part of his story after his escape; his story was not finished just yet.


	30. Chapter 30:Remember him?

The Operative was kneeling in front of the his new master. Of course, he was only kneeling in front of a hologram.

He no longer served Alma Coin, or the Proletariat, or District 13.

He now served President Coriolanus Snow, and him alone.

After being captured by Headpeacekeeper Romulus Thread, The Operative was taken to a secret prison in The Capitol; one reserved for the most dangerous prisoners. There, they did things that nobody should ever even see; let alone suffer through.

In the end, they made him understand their way of thinking. His brain was, in effect, washed.

He now works alongside the people who made him suffer, in service to the person by who they were ordered. He believed that they were in the right, and he was thankful to them for 'opening his eyes'.

He lived in a hidden compound just a few miles into the mountainous wilderness that surrounds the Capitol. The compound was designed in a way to make it look indistinguishable from just another mountain vacation villa. The large chateau was where the operatives lived, and the property was scattered with athletic fields where the operatives could keep in physical shape as well as practicing stations to tone his deadly skills.

There were many places like these where Snow can keep his very best assassins and use them when the regular secret police would not cut it.

He lives with other experts of foul play, eating breakfast with them, practicing his shooting with them, and occasionally sleeping with them (or at least the female ones who he finds attractive). He only leaves the compound to preform the dirty work of Snow.

Now his allegiance was to Snow.

When he spoke, The Operative's voice was noticeably different in the way that only those who knew him would notice.

"Leader, I am ready at your command. You need only give the order and it will be done."

President Snow smiled to himself, pleased to have another convert under his command. Now for deployment.

"Good, I am glad to have a follower as loyal as you. The Capitol will lead the world into a bright future, but unfortunately not everybody understands this."

One of Snow's other agents walked in and handed The Operative an envelope.

"Go on."

The Operative tore it open, and pulled out the contents. It was a family photo that an attractive District 11 victor had taken with his wife and children. The victor was twenty two year old, and had matured from an awkward child to a man. One whom wealthy woman of The Capitol found attractive.

"The people in the picture need to be destroyed, in that envelope you will find information on how to find and kill them. Can I trust you to carry this out?"

"Yes, my liege."

"But remember, do not kill the man. Kill only the others; and if possible make it look like an accident."

Even when brain washed The Operative loves a challenge. "This is going to be fun."

"This is what I like to hear. Now, over and out."


	31. Chapter 31:Pre-escape thoughts

In an elevator stood Katniss, Cato, Boggs, Dragomir, and Aurelius. Boggs was invited to the floor of Leona Kim to give security advice, Cato and Katniss are his bodyguards. Boggs invited Dragomir and Aurelius to come along, which is something he is allowed to do.

As Katniss and Cato stood at attention, their elevator climbed upward to the forty second floor. Once there, Katniss and Cato will have to pass for bodyguards if they want to get out of District 13 alive.

They will spend the whole day following close behind Lieutenant Luthier Boggs while he provides management advice to Lieutenant Leona Kim. After that, they would need to do the same on floor 31, and then on floor 12 and on floor one. All in all, the plan called for them all staying awake for four to five days.

The false escape map Boggs left in his apartment would have the District 13 soldiers trying to track them in the wrong direction, and they should not realize their mistake until it is too late.

They had injectable syringes in their pockets that they could use if they needed a boost of energy.

They all thought of something when they rode the elevator to their first stop.

Cato's thoughts were of his grim determination to either get the hell out of District 13 or meet his end fighting to the death. He thought of how he was now a father, and as such the duty was placed upon him to protect his child. Cato found comfort in remembering who he was; he was a warrior by blood, birth, upbringing, and tradition. The blood in his veins is the same blood that belonged to his heroic peacekeeper grandfather, and the culture he hailed from was District 2. Through his years Cato's strengths have been intensified, hardened, and toned. Cato was a Career, and District 13 would be a greater challenge than any Games of Hunger could possibly be; the stakes were higher and the odds were against him.

Katniss was equally determined; her panic subsided and replaced with a steel resolve. She simply did not want the child growing inside her to spend it's life within District 13. She would do everything in her power to keep her child safe from all harm. The thought of her late father for comfort or for words of wisdom. She knew that if her father were still among the living than he would protect her from any and all harm. Now she will do the same for her child.

Dr. Aurelius thought of how he would finally escape District 13. He forced himself to be confident, as otherwise his lack of confidence could spread to the others and poison any chance of success. Instead, he thought about the freedoms he would be able to experience on the other side; he could live in a home that was not bugged, he could eat food that did not taste metallic, he could see the sun. On the outside, he could even scream 'I hate the proletariat' and not worry about execution. There were still some problems in Panem, but that could wait.

Lieutenant Boggs loathed waiting, especially when he could almost taste the light at the end of the tunnel. He thought of his wife, and he shuddered. He thought of his son, and shuddered even more. But he also smiled in that he was sure that by escaping, they were giving President Coin the biggest insult possible short of a coup.

Dragomir Boggs knew only that he was getting a great surprise for his birthday, that he was getting his present early, and that there might be scary parts of this trip. He was told to close his eyes when something scary happened, and he would do that. He had no idea that the present Boggs was about to give him was a better life.

Soon they would either be free, or they would be dead.


	32. Chapter 32:Persuasion

The elevator door beeped, and then it opened.

Katniss, Cato, Boggs, Aurelius, and Dargomir stepped outside and were now in Floor 42.

The elevator terminal (which was a hallway winding around the floor auditorium in a central ring), was elaboratly decorated in comparison to the rest of District 13. While it is still plain when compared to alleyways in the Capitol, it is still quite a sight forsomeone who's environment is made up of differing shades of grey, black, and other sickly colors. The vaulted ceiling of the central ring was painted with various murals of common Proletarian imagery; both real and imaginary. The flag of the U.S.S.R. being raised over Berlin, the Tsars of old being guillotined outside the Winter Palace, and five cosmonauts planting the Red Flag of their ideology on the surface of the Moon.

Unapproved by the state, however, was the large graffiti scrawled across the murals and on the walls. It's red or black words spelled out several phrases. These included "The time has come for al-thawrah", and "Glory to the prophets".

They walk down the hallway towards the office of the Garrison Lieutenant. When they finally reach the place, they are greeted by an angry mob that stands outside the office. The angry mob is chanting religious phrases of a foreign language.

Lieutenant Boggs got their attention.

"I am Lieutenant Boggs, what seems to be the problem?"

The crowd turns around and sees Boggs and his two bodyguards. They are shouting angerly. Boggs calmly raises his voice above the screaming of the crowd.

"Please disperse and return to your workplace."

The people in the crowd were agitated. One man, who was trying to rally them, started to speak.

"Come on, I say we rush them. We are the mujahideen. We outnumber them and they can't get all of us."

The crowd would turn into a frenzy if nothing were done. They all knew something needed to be done.

Cato stepped between Boggs and the mob, and pointed his machine gun at the latter.

"This gun holds sixty rounds per clip. They are real bullets, and so are the ones in my pistol. All told, I alone could shoot and kill at least half of you before you overwhelm me. Now consider how many of you will die if when you also attack my comrade and my commanding officer. Disperse and return to you're places of work."

This caused the anger in the mob to turn to panic.

"They're gonna kill us."

While what Cato said was true, he did not want to gun them down; even without the moral objection to cold slaughter, he still knew he should not waste bullets.

"This is your last chance; disperse and return to you're places of work."

The crowd ran in terror away from this part of the hallway, fleeing from the bullets Cato did not fire.

Soon they were all gone.

The five people than waited outside the door to the office while Cato knocked on it. Soon the door was opened. Lieutenant Leona Kim welcomed them inside.

"Its a good thing you made it, and just in the nick of time too. Some people might have had to die if it wasn't for that quick thinking. But I'm sure you've seen a lot of people die on your floor, right?"

Boggs answers her question with a false affirmative. "Yep."

"Now, you came here for a reason. What was it?"

There was no way Boggs would tell the truth in this situation. "If I provide advice to people who ask for me, than Coin will think I'm an expert. That means promotions."

"If you wanted to be a commissioner, you could have asked. I scratch you're back, you scratch mine."

Boggs than began giving advice. He knew that he would be free or dead in two days.

The first challenge was halfway complete.


	33. Chapter 33:Dinner

After spending the day looking over papers and giving advice, Lieutenant Boggs finally got a break when it was time for dinner. Lieutenant Kin said they can eat in her apartment, as the food allotted to a Lieutenant was better than whatever tasteless mush they decided to serve in the communal mess hall.

In fact, the quality of the food they ate for dinner surprised Katniss and Cato after nearly a year of flavorless mush and metallic flavored water.

Their dinner consisted of wheat bread, cottage cheese, canned meat, vegetables, and non-alcoholic kumis.

The bread was a course wheat bread. It had an aftertaste akin to dirt, and when it turned stale it was harder than a rock. Yet the District 13 masses usually only get this bread on special occasions like the birthday of President Coin. Grunts in the full-time army get at least one loaf of the stuff a day. Among the ruling elite of District 13 it is a sort of filler food eaten as a side dish to meals, often with whey employed as a spread.

The meat was a combination of chopped pork shoulder meat, ham meat, salt, water, modified potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrate. The masses only get this type of meat if their floor exceeded their quota or if they had the highest productivity that year; and even then each commoner only gets one can. The ruling elite eat this or another type of meat every day.

The cheese was a type of canned cottage cheese, eaten only by the elite of District 13. A grunt in the full-time army is rewarded with one can per every metal they earn.

The vegetables were cans of carrots, radishes, peas, potatoes, and other assorted foods. While it is common for District 13 people to eat vegetables, the masses usually only get an average of one can per week. The District 13 elite consume about ten cans a day. Unlike the masses, he District 13 elite sometimes even get fresh vegetables.

Kumis is a drink made from the milk of mares; the District 13 version is non alcoholic just like every other drink in District 13. It is only drunk by the District 13 elite, and most of the masses do not even know of the existence of any drink besides water.

They all ate their fill, as Garrison Lieutenants always have a full larder.

While they were eating, Lieutenant Boggs was having a conversation with Lieutenant Kim about the political intrigues of the District 13 leadership. While they did not figure it out at first, Katniss and Cato were quickly able to come to the conclusion that Boggs was also acting to prevent Lieutenant Kim from seeing the reaction of his bodyguards to the food. Best that nobody becomes suspicious just yet.

Boggs first asked, "So, what's been going on here?"

Kim answered between a sip of non-alcoholic kumis, "Some jackass from the floor above me has been spreading superstitions and stirring up the people here. After the army spent so long trying to get rid of it, now it's spreading like wildfire and there is risk of a riot."

Boggs feigned concern, "That bad, huh?"

"Yes, in fact there was a food riot in the mess hall last week."

"How'd you deal with it?"

"I fired a few blanks and they all ran off."

"Do you think you'll have to pull a floor 23?"

"No, that's a bit too extreme. I want everybody to be calm and happy; not dead."

"Did you hear Coin's going to give the Lieutenant for floor 23 a Hero medal?"

Commonly called a Hero medal, the 'Hero of the Proletariat' medal was intended to be the highest possible honor in District 13. Now it is handed out to generals who have never seen a day of combat. It is not surprising to see District 13 generals with medals that were specifically intended for a particular war, one that the generals might not have even been born during the time period of.

"Im not surprised; Coin gives those out like candy."

They went back and forth until the others at the table finished their dinner.

In a few hours, Boggs was going to be invited to the floor of Floor Manager Lee Goufung. There he would give more unnecessary advice, and would be closer to freedom.


	34. Chapter 34:Law unenforcement

The elevator opened to floor 31.

Lieutenant Boggs, his bodyguard, and his other companions walked down the hallway. Unfortunately for them, the hallways of floor 31 are certainly not as safe as the hallways of floor 63. A gang of about twenty or so soldiers in ragged uniforms surrounded them in one of the hallways.

The company stood still in a defensive stance while the gang leader addressed Boggs.

"What are you folks doing here?"

Boggs answered with his usual calm. "I am a Lieutenant, and therefore I outrank you. My business is not something you should be concerned about. Just disperse and there won't be any trouble."

"There is only one Lieutenant on this floor, and he's not you. Now, I have to decide, what am I going to do with you?"

One of the rogue soldiers gave a suggestion. "I say we crucify them. We'll need to be terrifying if we want to give Lenin a run for his money."

Another rogue soldier, a fair haired one who is only eighteen and who reminds Katniss a bit of Darius, voices his concern. "They arn't causing trouble, can't we just let them alone?"

The gang leader responded. "You're a new member, so I'll pretend I didn't hear that." He now addressed the company. "As for you, I'll let you pass through if you're willing to let me borrow the girl."

Katniss gripped her machine gun, waiting for an opportunity to use the skills Boggs and Cato taught her.

The fair haired boy objected, "That's not fair. You can't make her fuc-"

The gang leader kicked him between the legs so hard that he fell onto the ground and curled into a fetal position.

He than proceeded to kick the fair haired boy in the stomach repeatedly. "Don't. Talk. To. Me. About. What. Is. Fair!" The other soldiers were distracted, now was their chance.

Katniss unloaded her gun at the soldiers in front of her, cutting them down before any of them could react. The feeling of a warm and vibrating machine gun was exhilarating; the adrenaline filled Katniss's veins.

Cato quickly turned around and killed off the soldiers behind them before they could pull up their guns. He was cold and calculating about it, having been taught only to enjoy killing people when it was an act of revenge.

Once the guns stopped rattling all the soldiers were either dead or routed with the sole exception being the fair haired boy lying on the floor in fetal position.

When he got back on his feet, he saw the bodies and became afraid.

Katniss spoke. "Don't worry we wont shoot you. What is your name?"

The fair haired boy spoke. "Justinian. You said you were passing through?"

This time Boggs answered him. "We are headed to the office of Floor Manager Lee Guofung."

"Here, let me show you how to reach it."

Boggs was about to say that he already knew how to reach it, but the ambush made him think that maybe he should let him lead the way.

As Justinian lead them through the halls in a pattern that can only be described as a zigzag, he explained how he was only with the gang because he was hungry and they needed food.

When Boggs and his companions reached the office of Lee Guofung, Justinian said goodby to them and returned the floor garrison barracks.

Now they learned that things fell apart under his rule.

Starvation and corruption had run rampant. Soldiers who were supposed to garrison the floor devolved into gangs in ragged uniforms; these gangs often got into gunfights in the hallways. The rest of the time these gangs roam the floor extorting the defenseless masses in order to acquire food, clothing, and sexual gratification.

The gangs often compete, and the biggest gang is the one that installs its leader as the Garrison Lieutenant. The current lieutenant is a sadist and a cannibal named Mengistu Lenin.

Unknown to them, President Alma Coin is currently ignoring this infighting. She does have plans to send in troops and establish martial law. This plan also calls a floor wide purging, and may even extend to a floor extermination.

As Boggs looked over paperwork and gave advice, he felt glad at soon he would be out of this hellhole.


	35. Chapter 35:Obstacle

The companions of Lieutenant Boggs are with him called to the First Floor by Security Secretary Chen Trotsky. After a long elevator ride, they finally made it to the first floor. They already did their research ahead of time, but were still in awe at what they saw.

The whole floor is devoted to defense; it is made up almost entirely of barracks's, armories, and other military facilities.

The hallways were made of steel, with a machine gun nest at every checkpoint and a checkpoint at every section where two hallways cross paths. There are security cameras literally every five ten of wall. There are gas canisters mounted on the walls that will spill their entire payload should an invading army break through the gate.

On the subject of the main fallout gate (which resides in e central circle where the auditorium would normally be), it is more like a vault than an actual door. An enormous, ancient, ten foot thick vault built of multiple layers of concrete and steel. It has been opened in over seventy five years. Despite the fact that it is now more of a wall than a vault door, it is still heavily guarded around the clock by the best of the best. These guards stay in a giant room which is the area between the Red Gate and the second massive door that is opened and closed to let them inside or outside of the room. The Red Gate never opens.

Obviously breaking thought the Red Gate would be suicide.

However, each sector on this floor has a minor "gate" these heavily guarded stairwells (though not as heavily guarded as the Red Gate) lead directly to the surface and are used so soldiers patrolling the ruins above can come down to the surface when their shift is over. Though normally locked and heavily guarded, the other gates are the best chance that the two remaining members (and the three new recruits) of the District 13 intellectual society have.

There are also camouflaged kresposts scattered among the ruins on the surface; combination barracks and armory so that soldiers can stay on the surface over night. The ruins are surrounded by a ring of barbed wire that prevents runaways.

Escaping would be hard enough; the five escapers would also have to avoid being caught for the two weeks it would take to walk to District 12.

Now it was do or die.


	36. Chapter 36: Do or die

Boggs and his companions were in the office of Security Secretary Chen Trotsky, listening to him explain the goings on. They were waiting patiently, pretending to listen as Chen Trotsky droned on with facts concerning the defense of a district they had no intention of ever returning to. They were just waiting for the moment when Trotsky would be interrupted by the blaring of an alarm that would distract everyone enough for there to be an escape.

* * *

><p>District 13 soldiers sat in the room that monitored the missile warning systems. Normally, they get nothing at all. These soldiers were specially trained to watch the screens for any warning problem, and to give a warning to take cover.<p>

It is actually possible to introduce a bug into the system without any of these specialists knowing; sometimes it is possible to trick or bribe one of them into doing it.

Occasionally the system might pick up a chunk of falling space debris or a low orbit weather satellite from a more technologically advanced nation. However, it has been seventy five years since a missile of any kind was detected. Today it detected something big coming from the south.

The soldier in front of the monitor became horrified by what he saw; twenty nuclear warheads headed strait for District 13.

His horror changed to panic, as he sounded the alarm. It rang through all the hallways of District 13s sixty five floors. People clambered from workplaces, lunch halls, barracks's, bedrooms, bathrooms; from all over the district people clambered into the halls to try and reach the bomb shelters. The masses crammed into public bomb shelters, and the elite quietly moved into private bomb shelters.

All the people were desperately trying to get as far away from the surface as possible; all except five.

* * *

><p>As Lieutenant Boggs lead his companions through the human herd of soldiers (for only a skeletal amount remains, it at first seemed they were also headed for the shelters. But any fear of this that Katniss and Cato may have had was put to rest when they hid under the doorway of a room. There, they waited.<p>

For half an hour they waited, though it felt like thirty hours. A seemingly endless sea of grey uniforms rapidly push and shove their way through the hallways, desperate to reach the bunkers before the nukes hit. The soldiers were panicked, horrified that the would never see their families again. Many others just simply did not want to die in a burst of nuclear radiation, and the survival instincts set them to flight. Thousands of feet stomping along the way.

They waited until the hoard of fleeing soldiers had passed. The hallways were now almost abandoned. There was only a skeletal force guarding the first floor.

Boggs looked behind him at his four companions. He whispered to them, "We must move now. We'll never get another chance."

Katniss nodded, fully aware that her actions in the next few hours will mean either freedom or death.

They walked hastily down the hallway, and as they did so they only attracted a minimal amount of attention from the guards. For the most part they were almost able to reach a minor stairwell unmolested.

Then, as they were about to turn a corner, they ran into a guard. He was a corporal, and he noticed immediately that Dr. Aurelius and Dragomir were civilians on a floor where they were not authorized.

"Hay, you! Only authorized personnel allowed on this floor. Head down now."

Boggs spoke with hidden irritation, "I am a Garrison Lieutenant, I authorized them to accompany me on this floor."

This only raised the corporal's suspicion. "If you're a Lieutenant, you should be in the bunkers now. The first twenty floors are on evacuation."

"I am a Lieutenant, you will do as I say!"

"I'm sorry, but you forced my hand. You are all under arrest."

In hindsight, it was the corporal who forced Boggs's hand.

"Dragomir, look away. Keep your eyes closed until I say its okey to look."

Once Boggs's son had his face buried in Uncle Aurelius's shoulder, Boggs opened fire.

The force of the bullets sent the corporal flying, finally landing on the floor in front of them. The corporal lie on his back, in a pool of his own blood, gasping his life out. In his last seconds, he thought of his wife and his daughter.

Having no time to spend on the dead corporal, the five escapers sprinted down the hallway. They took precaution to slow down at corners and crossroads, and felt their lungs pump in their chests.

They had to move fast if they wanted to escape. Their cover would be blown by the corpse, and they had to be on the surface by then.

They would soon reach the stairwell, and would have to fight their way through.

They could already hear the alarmed shouting of guards behind them; they body was already discovered. The footsteps of guards can be heard, for they are giving chase.

It was now or never. Do or die.


	37. Chapter 37:Firefight

The stairwell is within sight, but there are still foes to face down. When they reach a minor stairwell, there is about forty five soldiers stationed around it. All of them seem on alert, so they probably learned about the body the communicuff the Staff Sergeant currently has around his arm.

Indeed, it is true that he received word to be on the lookout, as Lieutenant Boggs had "gone rogue" and killed a corporal. Despite this fact, the Staff Sergeant

This means that the five escapers will be shot on sight. Fortunately, the escapers already planned what they would do about this. It helped that they saw the guards before the guards saw them.

Katniss fired one burst of ammunition from her machine gun, and Cato and Boggs provided firing support to keep the other guards from shooting her. Katniss hit her target; the enemy Staff Sergeant (as well as a soldier next to him) was hit through the chest. He fell back, and collapsed on the ground.

The force of the bullets caused his field cap to flip backwards and fall off and onto the floor, exposing his bald head. Blood was gushing from his chest, and his heart had been torn open.

"O God! O God! Please deliver me!"

He had kept his theism secret his whole life, often looking over his shoulders. But he was dying and he knew it; no reason to hide now. It was not like they could execute kill him again.

He then whispered, though the blood bubbling out of his mouth meant that none of the guards could understand him. He didn't care, as his words were meant for someone else.

"Though I am not worthy that you should enter under your ... roof ... say the word and my soul ... healed ..."

His eyes became dull, he closed them and was dead.

The guards were effectively leaderless.

Though the forty guards tried to fire back at the five escapees, they were taken by surprise and six more were felled. Three more were hit after that, though they were only injured. Once Cato lobbed a grenade at them, they panicked and fled down the hallway.

Boggs's power had not yet been cleared, so he pressed his thumb against the first door unlock and it opened easily enough.

Unfortunately, he could not climb the stairs to freedom just yet.

More guards, about thirty five men who followed them down the hallway, arrived at the hallway and began firing at the doorway. All five escapers rushed inside and Boggs fired back, but the situation did not look good.

In fact, the thirty guards the previously routed heard the gunfire and came to help their comrades out of a sense of revenge.

They could not just close the door; that would allow them to blow it open. While they were deciding what to do, Cato showed just how determined to protect his wife and child he really was.

"Go on ahead without me; I'll meet you at the top."

While Dr. Aurelius headed up with Dragomir in his arms, Katniss and Boggs stayed behind, the former providing covering fire while the latter tried to convince her husband not to stay and fight.

"Cato, you don't have to do this."

Cato answered with a bark. "Yes I do. I'll meet you up ahead, now go."

Katniss saw that there was no changing Cato's mind, and in his eyes she also saw why his mind could not be changed.

"Okey."

She leaned in and kissed Cato in an uncharacteristic display of passion.

He was surprised by this, as in the past they only kissed during copulation. He held her in his arms and kissed her for about a minute, and when they stopped Katniss and Boggs headed up to the top of the stairwell to catch up with Dr. Aurelius.

As the escapers headed up to the top of the stairwell, they listened to the gunfire below and wondered if Cato could really hold his own against seventy soldiers.

Boggs pressed his thumb against the print scanner on the door, and it granted access. They were now on the surface. He left the door open in case Cato made it.

While they were still in a vacant krespot that guarded the stairwell, they could hear the wind blowing outside. They could smell moss and trees and dirt and all the other fragrance of mother nature that could not penetrate into the sixty five floors of District 13.

They were so close to freedom that they could practically taste it in their mouths. It was so close but still separated from them by miles and miles.

From one of the windows, Katniss, Boggs, and Dr. Aurelius could see three trucks full of District 13 soldiers approaching the krespot.

Those would also pose a problem.


	38. Chapter 38:Cato's Bloodbath

Cato stood with machine gun in his hands. His heart pumped rapidly, and adrenaline flowed through his veins. On the other side of the stairwell door are seventy enemies.

Cato reminded himself inwardly who he was where he came from; it is common to draw strength from heritage, especially when that heritage places emphasis on strength.

_**I am a Career. I am my grandfathers grandson. The blood of the peacekeepers flow through my veins. I am a warrior.**_

Cato opened the door just enough to fire at the soldiers outside. He emptied a magazine out, killing seven enemy soldiers. Once his magazine was empty, he was back behind the door.

As he pulled another magazine from his belt, he could hear the bullets of the enemy soldiers hit the metal door that he was taking cover behind. He shoved the magazine into his gun, opened the door, and fired at the enemy soldiers.

Since the enemies were firing back, he was only able to get short bursts out against them.

Soon his magazine ran out of ammunition, and had to put in a third one. However, the soldiers took advantage of this situation. Several of them charged at the door, trying to push it open. Cato knew well enough that them getting the door open would mean death for him and his companions. Using all his strength, he tried to keep the door closed; he was only delaying the inevitable and he knew it.

In desperation, Cato pulled a grenade from his belt and three it underhand out the door. It landed between the legs of the enemy soldiers and killed a good amount of them. The grenade exploded so close to them that their limbs were scattered all around. The door was blasted off its hinges, and Cato was thrown back. He knew that the door is the only reason he was still alive.

Climbing back on his feet, he fired his machine gun at the enemy soldiers who tried swarming him. They all died, but he knew that more were coming.

He could hear their footsteps.

Cato threw two grenades, one down each end of the hallway. It only killed about two or three, but it distracted them. In that brief distraction, Cato had an idea. He knew it was stupid, but it was the only thing left to do. Cato pulled on his gas mask: he would need it.

Firing his gun, he hit and set off one of the nerve gas canisters. Cato then shot down another, than a third, than a forth.

The sickening gas poured down from the shot up canisters, filling the hallway and the stairwell. Cato did not stay to observe his handiwork, but instead ran as fast as he could up the stairs. The gas was filling the bottom of the stairwell, but he soon climbed so high that the gas would not follow. Cato climbed out of the stairwell and into the krespot. He closed the door behind him.

If he had stayed behind, he would have seen his handiwork. The District 13 soldiers who came to reinforce their comrades unknowingly ran head first into a room filled with nerve gas. The foul stuff filled their lungs, causing them to fall to their kanda and knees, grasping their throats as they choke on the gas. Many spasm, vomit, drool, or simply suffocate. Those few that can still control their bodies for a few seconds longer do one of two things; they either put on their gas masks (which only prolongs their agony one four out of five times) or they put their gun in their mouths (which ends their agony forever).

All told, there were two hundred dead and dying people in the hallway outside the stairwell. The circumstances needed for one man to hold his own against two hundred people are rare, and even in those it takes a determined warrior to pull it off.

Sometimes being at a disadvantage is not so bad, as it forces one to be creative.


	39. Chapter 39:Exchange of Fire

Katniss, Boggs, and Dr. Aurelius took up positions to defend the krepost from the four hundred and sixty or so soldiers, while Dragomir hid in one of the rooms on his father's orders.

Boggs was able to unlock all the weapons lockers. They now had an arsenal, so ammunition would be of no concern.

Locked and loaded, they were ready to fight.

They fired at the windshields of the trucks, causing them to come to abrupt stops. The soldiers inside were robbed of time to prepare, and the driver in one truck was robbed of his life.

The soldiers scrambled to take cover in nearby ruins, but several were shot down before reaching safety.

Once the soldiers reached safety, they began to return fire. The five escapees had to take cover under the windowsills as the bullets flew overhead.

Not wanting to simply wait for the enemies to run out of bullets, Katniss put her gun on the window sill and fired back from below it. It was a blind shot, but she was able to splatter the head of one unlucky soldier.

Boggs used this covering support to throw a grenade out the window. It somehow rolled under one of the trucks, destroying it and killing the three soldiers who were taking cover behind it.

The soldiers knew that they could not simply shoot the escapers out like they planned, so they devised a plan.

While there was an exchange of fire going on, about nine District 13 soldiers under the command of a lance corporal crawled on their stomach around the krepost and entered through a window in the back.

Though Katniss and Boggs were too busy to hear them, Dr. Aurelius was crawling to one of the ammo chests to get more magazines when he saw nine soldiers inside. Using his last magazine, he fired at them. He was able to kill or injure most of them, but two managed to duck out of the way in time. They then pulled out their combat knives and charged at Dr. Aurelius, knowing that he was out of ammunition and without a knife of his own.

The close quarters prevented the two soldiers from using their guns.

Dr. Aurelius used the butt of his empty machine gun to block one of the knives, and leaned out of the way of the other knife. He turned his gun around and bashed the soldier between the legs with the barrel of the gun. He than slammed the butt of the gun into the other soldier who was trying to stab him from behind; Dr. Aurelius cracked the soldier's skull open, killing him.

Now Dr. Aurelius was on the ground, wrestling with the other soldier for a knife. They were both grappling, biting, and clawing in an attempt to make the other cede the knife.

The soldier managed to get the knife. He swung down at Dr. Aurelius's chest, but was unable to deliver the killing stab. The doctor held his hand by the wrist and would not let go. The soldier slowly forced the knife closer and closer to Dr. Aurelius's throat, and the doctor feared that he might die.

The next thing Dr. Aurelius knew, the soldier's head exploded in a burst of red. The blood covered Dr. Aurelius's face, preventing him from seeing. Once he wiped the stuff off him, he pushed the headless corpse off him.

Standing over Dr. Aurelius, holding a machine gun, was Cato Hardley.

Cato spoke with his normal voice. "I told you I'd catch up."

Dr. Aurelius was still in shock over almost dying, so he could not say much. "Well, Im glad your a man of your word."

Cato extended his arm and helped his tutor to his feet.

Dr. Aurelius and Cato loaded more magazines into their machine guns, and the former explained their situation to the latter.

"They snuck in through the back?"

"Yes."

"Well, that does give me an idea on how to get out of this."

They went back into the main room of the krepost, and explained Cato's plan to Boggs and Katniss. They both agreed that it could work.

They prepared everything they would need, and Boggs left a message for the soldiers who would inevitably try to track them. This way, if they did not believe the false maps in his former apartment, they would believe this.

Boggs used some spray paint from one of the chests to leave the message on the wall.

It read the following; **Headed North, catch us if you can.**

This was false, as they would actually be headed south.

Towards District 12.


	40. Chapter 40: Sneaking Out

The district 13 soldiers stood in various positions around the krepost. Most of them were taking cover behind some ruin; a pile of overgrown rubble, a collapsed column, or a broken wall of an abandoned building.

The soldiers then noticed a fire rising from the inside of the krepost. This was a pleasant surprise, as it would flush out the escapers. The soldiers waited, but most of them did not see the escapers.

However, the commanding officer of the soldiers did not see the five rogues escape.

This was not good.

For him, things went from bad to worse. First he was told that soldiers in the northern positions were killed without anyone noticing; knife wounds paint a gruesome picture. Then the tires on the remaining two trucks were found to have been punctured, preventing these trucks from being used. Finally, an inspection of the krepost reveals that the rogues are nowhere to be seen; the only hint of their location is a cocky hint left on the wall.

The commanding officer felt sick in his stomach; several of his men were dead, military property was damaged, and he had nothing to show for it. He would be lucky if demotion is all he got, though he knew that execution was a possibility.

* * *

><p>The five escapers walked stealthily away from the burning krepost and the soldiers they took by surprise. After commandeering the ammunition and canteens from the dead soldiers, the five escapers continued to move at a quiet yet rapid pace. After having circled around the enemy from a safe distance, they began to head south.<p>

As they walked, they saw the ruin and destruction that remained of Old District 13. The collapsed shells of old buildings scattered the area, covered in a sea of rubble.

The radiation level was at undetectable levels, so they did not need to wear gas masks. Most of the bodies were cleared away and despised of seventy years ago, so there were no unpleasant surprises of that nature. Aside from the outposts and kreposts that were scattered through the area, the ruins were being overgrown. Vegetation had cropped up around the ruins, and were working to break the stones and concrete down so as to reach the soil below.

Even so, evidence of destruction can still be seen. Most of the buildings are blackened from the explosions of bombs that landed three quarters of a century ago. The soil still retained a slightly black tinge, and it seems that no amount of rain can fully wash away what happened here.

In front of the old justice building is the melted remains of a statue; unrecognizable now, it was once a statue of the Panem's founder. It was torn down during the uprising, and left on the ground. There it melted into a glop of bronze when the bombs fell. Even if it's ears remained intact, it could not hear the screams of terror as the in sheltered population burned alive.

Finally, the five escapers reach the edge of Old District 13.

It is late at night, and the only lights they can see are the ones that shine from the old justice building; one of the few buildings that was actually repaired after the bombing.

Turning their backs on the lights of the dead city, the five escapers left the ruins.

They left District 13, and entered the woods.


	41. Chapter 41:Wilderness

The woods were dark, it was midnight, and the five refugees did not stop. They knew that they had only a few days before the soldiers who were tracking them found out that they were not headed north. The five refugees would have to use is time to get as far away from the ruins as possible. This means they will not sleep until for another two days.

Hiking through the forest is not as easy for Boggs and Aurelius as it is for Katniss and Cato. The Huntress and the Career are young and they both spent their lives in the forest, getting good exercise, eating healthy foods, and being exposed to lots of sunlight and fresh air.

In contrast, the Good Doctor and the Honest Lieutenant are middle aged and have spent every day of that time subsisting on lackluster nutrition, breathing stale air, and living underground. While Boggs had an advantage of having spent a few years in the rain and mud and stormy weather of the Carib islands (as well as the advantage if being in good physical fitness as a result of being a soldier), he also has the disadvantage of having to carry his infant son on his shoulders in addition to his heavy pack.

As they walk through the forest, the signs of civilization become more and more sparse. It takes only a few hours before they can no longer see rubble or ruins at all.

They are now in the wilderness.

All around they are shaded by large and ancient trees. Through the spaces between the branches, they are able to decipher the time of day. While Boggs and Aurelius are so unused to the forest that the woodland critters keep their distance as a result of the noise, they are at least able to cover their tracks well enough.

In order to keep them everybody's moral high enough to keep marching, the four adults would take turns singing songs that they knew. Even though Dragomir was asleep, they all agreed that the songs they chose would at least be altered so as to be age appropriate.

Boggs sung a song from the Carib wars, a surprisingly lighthearted one about the peanut butter rations. It had a catchy tune.

"Okey, now who wants to go next?"

Cato answered the challenge, "I have a song. My cousin is a peacekeeper, and he told me they used to sing this one in training camp."

While Cato sang his song, Katniss felt uneasy at the mention that Cato is related to a Peacekeeper. She thought that Cato was quite possibly a Career or a Peacekeeper. There were a lot of peacekeepers she did not like, but she did like Cato; if she found out he was a Career than could she reconcile it? She decided she'd let it wait until they found shelter.

She was so lost in thought that she did not hear the song Dr. Aurelius sang.

Then it became her turn.

After some hesitation, Katniss sung "The Hanging Tree". Her voice made all the birds in the trees fall silent. Boggs, who is reminded of his late wife, resists the urge to sob bitterly.

Soon it becomes dark. Again.

They were walking three days, and were well beyond the radius of District 13.

Katniss and Cato were not worried about the tracking chips behind their ears; the night before their escape plan was set into motion, Dr. Aurelius found a way to short circuit them.

Since the District 13 people would have no way to track them, they could finally rest. They set up camp. They do not want to risk a campfire, so instead they just slept beneath their blankets.

It was a quiet night. The stars were shining dimly.

* * *

><p>*The song he sung is based in the civil war song "Goober Peas".<p>

**The song he sung is based on the wwi song "O how I hate to get up in the morning".


	42. Chapter 42: Camping trip

They slept in later the next morning than they intended to; a combination of exhaustion from three days of nonstop walking and of not having an alarm to wake them up. Fortunately, the people from District 13 were still looking for them in the wrong direction, so they were not in too much trouble.

After a quick breakfast of ready-to-eat field rations (being careful to bring the wrapper with them), they headed out again. There were clouds in the sky, and Katniss looked at them with concern.

Cato rested his arm on his wife's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure its nothing."

Cato's assumption was false.

It not only rained, it poured.

The rain was so bad that they all had to walk with their blankets huddled around them.

As the rain got worse, they realized that shelter was a necessity. They had to find some place to take cover or the rain would saturate them and they would die of sickness.

Refuge was found in the form of a cave in the ground. Not a cave formed by nature's brushstroke a but a cave formed of concrete built in a long and forgotten past. They crawled inside, and as Boggs lit a small fire to illuminate the cavern, Aurelius explained it's purpose to to the others.

"This must be part of an abandoned subway system."

Cato and Katniss learned what those were from the tutoring, but Dragomir still had no idea. Like any child his age, he asked 'why?'.

"Whats a subway system?"

Aurelius, glad to talk about anything (and to distract himself from the rain outside), elaborated.

"Back in the days of the North Americans, people lived in large cities. The cities were so large that they needed trains to get from one place to another. The most efficient place to put those trains was underground."

As Aurelius explained to Dragomir what subways were, Cato and Katniss looked around at the inside of the subway tunnel. Though it was not natural, the cracks in the ceiling and the caved in sections mean it might as well be.

They found a dry corner of the subway and placed their campfire there. They huddled next to the fire and dried off. Then they unpacked some spare clothes. One at a time, one of them would undress and get into dry clothes while the others turned away so as to respect the privacy of the person changing (though Katniss and Cato watched each other, but they _were_ married after all). Once they were all in dry clothes, they laid their wet pair of clothes near the fire to dry.

Boggs roasted one of their cans of food over a fire, cooking the contents. There was enough beans to feed all of them.

After a dinner of canned food, the went to sleep. They were in a dry place, and their blankets kept the nighttime cold from getting to them. They fell asleep, and their dreams took them.

It was raining heavily outside. Water was pouring down in massive torrents, covering the tracks of the five escapers. If they had not found a leftover transportation tunnel of a dead civilization, than they would also be soaking under the downpour instead of wearing dry clothes and sleeping under a warm blanket in front of a crackling fire.

It did not matter to them that there was still a long way to go, nor did it matter to them that they had know way of knowing what would be on the other side when they got back.

All that mattered was that, for now at least, they were free.


	43. Chapter 43:Boggs's Nightmare

**Author's Note: This is a dark chapter. Just a heads up.**

* * *

><p>As they slept, Boggs was reliving the worst day he will ever have in his entire life.<p>

He has this dream infrequently, and it comes when least expected.

* * *

><p>"Lieutenant Boggs, your wife is giving birth. Head over to the floor hospital right away. She is in hospital room 203."<p>

Boggs heard what the communicuf said, and he responded with haste. As he raced down the hallway, he hoped he would be able to comfort his wife while she brought his second son into the world. His heart was beating with the strength of a lion, one that can not wait one second.

He goes to the hospital, but the door to the chamber is barred by two guards. Their request is a simple one.

"We need you to hand over your weapon before we can let you inside."

Boggs had such inability to wait that he flung his pistol and knife off had threw them at the guards before they finished speaking.

He ran down the hallway past each hospital room, he eventually came to the one that his wife was in. 198,199,200,201,202,203. He was there.

He could not go inside, for the bulletproof glass door was locked. He could see his wife in a hospital bed, wearing a patents gown. A blood covered doctor is standing next to a metal tray, the contents of which can not be seen from the Lieutenant's standpoint. Boggs's beloved wife was bitterly sobbing, but he still knew not the reason.

Something was terribly wrong.

A doctor at the door, the same doctor who trained Dr. Kurtz personally, addressed Boggs.

"Lieutenant, I have something to tell you."

"Why is Agrippa crying?"

"I am sure you of all people can understand -"

Boggs was becoming panicked. "Why is Agrippa crying?!"

The doctor answered in a voice that betrayed how irrelevant he felt this explaining business all was. "Your wife gave birth to a son, but he was born with Down Syndrome."

Boggs still could not see what was being explained, or why his wife would be crying so much. "What are you talking about?"

"What your wife gave birth to was not a person. It was a defective, an abomination, life unworthy of life. We did what we had to to keep District 13 unburdened."

In that instant, it all came together. The metal tray, the sobbing, the blood. Blood, so much blood; to much to just be from a delivery. Boggs realized what the doctor did to his son.

"You killed my son?"

"Don't worry, you're wife is young enough to try again-"

Boggs exploded in blinding rage. He would later recall the feeling as blanking out, temporarily ceasing to exist.

The guards who witnessed it, and who pulled him off the badly beaten doctor, described him as wanting to lash out at anyone, at everyone.

As they dragged Boggs back to his room, he screamed until his throat was sore to the point of closing. Burning tears ran down his face, staining his uniform.

He thought it could not get worse, but he was proven dead wrong.

It was a day later. After he spent several hours sitting contently while Floor Manager Malenkov berated him for beating a doctor without just provocation (not that Boggs was listening anyway, he was numb to everything), Boggs was finally dismissed to go home.

His son Dragomir was still too young to speak, and hopefully to young to remember all of this.

With his second son dead, and his wife silenced by depression, Boggs thought the world ended and that it could not become worse. When Boggs got home, he saw exactly how worse it had gotten.

His wife was locked in the bathroom. He knocked and tried to open the door: nothing. He tried again, this time calling her by name: again nothing.

An acute panic filled Boggs, as he started pounding on the door and screaming for his wife to open it.

Soon he began throwing all his weight against the door. Again and again, he tried to break it down. On the forth attempt, he succeeded.

The door swung open, revealing a horrific sight.

Sitting on top of the closed toilet seat was his wife. Her skin was pallor, and her head was slumped down in defeat. In her hand was a bloody razor.

Blood was still draining from the gashes on her wrist.

Boggs became distraught. He went up to his wife and begged, "Stay with me. Please, please. Stay with me. "

Over and over, he pleaded. He grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to shake her from it, tried to wake her up in any way he could.

It was too late.

Boggs wailed bitterly, his were the cries of a broken man. A man who had lost a wife and a son.

A darkness surrounded Boggs, and it enveloped him. For more hours than he was aware of, he sat on the bathroom floor with his legs pulled close to his chest. He rocked back and forth while tears flooded from his eyes and soaked his clothes.

He was devoid of hope.

* * *

><p>Boggs woke up from the nightmare, and the first thing he saw was Dragomir. Boggs was determined to make sure his last son was kept safe.<p> 


	44. Chapter 44:men of the mountains

A tall man of about twenty seven years (not that he knows exactly), was out hunting in the woods.

His clothes were made of fur and buckskin, his bushy brown beard was unkempt. On his head was a simple buckskin cap. He was tall and strong from a varied diet. With his hazel eyes, he observed five travelers from a safe distance.

The travelers were two middle aged men, a young man, a young woman, and an infant.

The five travelers were not wild-folk like he was, so the mountain man was not entirely sure whether or not he could trust them. If they were wild-folk, then he need not worry as wild-folk very rarely attack each other unless there is a blood feud.

If they were white cloaks than he would definitely help them; helping a white cloak back to his fortress will usually result on a reward such as a metal canteen or some canned food or maybe even a gun.

They look like grey cloaks, which means that he probably should not trust them. While a white cloak can be benevolent or malevolent depending on the individual (and most lean towards the former because they are only in the forest if they are lost and therefore in need of help), a grey cloak is usually hostile. Grey cloaks murder wild-folk regularly, either finning their numbers or kidnapping them.

However, the mountain man felt that something made these grey cloaks different. These ones have a child with them. It is unlikely that they would bring their own child in the woods if their intent was malicious.

Taking a possibly lethal risk, the mountain man made his presence known to them.

"Greetings travelers."

When the five saw him, they pointed their guns at him. He raised his hands in the air with palms facing outward; this was a common sign of good will. His crossbow was at his back and within fast reach if the need arose.

One of the middle aged men, a pale skinned man with watery blue eyes, asked a question of the mountain man.

"What is your name?"

After a hearty laugh, the mountain man answered. "My name is Kootenay Bonnyville. Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

The apparent leader of the companionship answered Bonnyville's question. "My name is Luthier Boggs. This man is Doctor Matthias Aurelius, the man on his shoulders is my son Dragomir. This man is Cato Hardley, and the woman is his wife Katniss. We are traveling south, and mean no harm."

"Well that is good, because I need no harm. You do not look like you are used to the forest."

"You could say that."

Bonnyville looked at the sky, and saw that it was raining. Since he was a wild-folk, this means he was raised to show hospitality towards strangers.

This hospitality arose out of necessity; is someone is caught in a storm and needs to stay in the nearest cabin, than it is comforting to know the owner of the cabin won't bash his brains out. Usually there is a cord of firewood and a stack of smoked meat in one corner of a cabin so specifically for guests.

"If you want, I have a shelter not too far from here. You can stay there until the rain stops."

Boggs considers this for a long time, and finally he answers after weighing in risks verses benefits.

"Alright but if you double cross us than it will be the end of you."

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

Bonnyville lead the five travelers through the forest, talking about the different types of animals he would hunt. Some of the animals Katniss did not recognize, but many others she recognized well enough.

In fact, they were able to have a lengthy conversation about the different aspects of hunting and forestry. This conversation mostly went over the heads of the other four travelers, though Dr. Aurelius asked a few questions about the local fauna.

Their discussion then veered towards the similarities and differences between the northern woods and the woods of District 12. Where as the woods of District 12 and the woods in the northern wilderness were both made up mostly of deciduous broad leafed trees, there were some notable differences. For example, the turkey that roamed the woods beyond District 12 were nowhere to be found this far north. Likewise, trackerjackers and nightlock berries were significantly less common an in the District 12 woods.

Their conversation somehow got on the subject of hunting weapons, as well as how they were similar or different. Katniss used a bow and arrows to hunt in District 12, this has the advantages of a fast reloading time and a long fire distance. Bonnyville uses a crossbow to hunt, they are slower but they require less skill to use and are all around easier to repair and make ammunition for. Since this involved weapons, Cato (who only hunted with his cousin on the rare occasions that he can visit) was able to also talk in this conversation; his weapon was a hunting rifle, which was not as fast as a bow but still more efficient than a crossbow.

Finally, they reached a small clearing in the woods. In this clearing were two log buildings; a wood shed and a cabin. The shed and the cabin were on either side of the clearing, and a fire pit was in between them.

Bonnyville lit a fire, and brought out some smoked meat for his guests. He also brought out six wooden stakes so they could all hear their meat over the fire to warm it up. He had to take a bite of it himself first, since he figured they possibly suspected him of poisoning it. Indeed, once he swallowed his bite, the travelers began eating the meat with ease.

Katniss and Cato both looked like they were enjoying the meat, as it reminded them of home. Boggs, Dragomir, and Dr. Aurelius looked like they have never eaten meat before. This actually is the first time they ate meat that was less than a month old, and was in an actual shape as appose to being grindings in a can.

Sitting around a campfire and eating can naturally lower anyone's inhibitions about conversation. This is just natural.

"So tell me, why are grey cloaks like you headed south?"

Boggs decided it was safe to be honest with Bonnyville, as five people with machineguns are more dangerous than one man with a crossbow.

"We are running away. We just escaped from District 13, and we need get as far away from them as possible. That's why we're headed south."

"District 13? So that's what the grey cloaks call their home. Why did you want to run off?"

Boggs decided to give the short answer, as explaining everything bad about District 13 will take a year. "Life there was hell."

"Well, if you want to get south, you'll need to get past the Ontario Lake."

"Can't we go around it?"

"I reckon you could, but it would take much longer. How's about this; Ill take you to my Pa, and since he's a fisherman he'll might be able to ferry you across."

Boggs considered this thoroughly, than he answered. "Alright. We will meet your father and see if he'll ferry us across."

They talked around the fire some more, until it looked like it would rain. They went into the cabin and Bonnyville pulled out homemade sleeping bags. They all crawled into the bags and went to sleep.


	45. Chapter 45:Career

It was raining outside.

While the others were sleeping, Katniss and Cato were awake. She crawled out of her sleeping bag and made her way next to Cato, who was sitting up out of his sleeping bag and listening to the rain. He was at the far end of the cabin, so they would be far enough from the others that nobody would hear them.

"You can't sleep either?"

Katniss shook her head.

Cato wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.

"We'll be home soon."

"Yes, yes we will."

They were silent for a moment, just listening to the rain and to each others soft breathing. Katniss decided not to waste time beating around the bush.

"Cato, are you a Career?"

Cato did not know where this question was coming from. "What do you mean?"

Katniss waited a year to ask this question, and she did not intend to wait any longer. "Are you a Career?"

Cato picked up something in her voice, but still answered. "Yes I am a Career. Is there something wrong with that?"

Katniss thought about this. She thought of the Career tributes she saw on television during the hunger games. She had an image in her head of what a career typical looked like; stone faced, muscular, lumbering brutes who relentlessly and mercilessly hack down starved opponents during the bloodbaths before turning on and cruelly ripping each other apart like mad dogs.

"Yes, there is something wrong with that."

"Katniss, I spent an entire year doing everything in my power to keep you from harm, and I will continue to protect you until the second I die. You are the mother of my son, and I will work equally hard to protect him. I care about you..."

Cato stopped just short of saying something he wanted to say but did not know how to say; he stopped short of saying 'I love you'.

"Does my being a Career change any of that?"

When Katniss heard what Cato asked, she took in what he was. She saw the man was willing to make a last stand to buy her time to escape, she saw the man who only demonstrated cruelty towards someone who tried to hurt her, she saw the man who is the father of her child.

"No, it doesn't change any of that."

Cato breathed a sigh of relief.

They sat for a while, listening to the rain. After a while, Cato broke the pause.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm too old to volunteer anyways."

Katniss realized that she had not considered this before. She felt a little guilty for not having been concerned for his safety, but was still glad that his life would not be in danger.

Though not mad with Cato personally, she still did not approve of the system itself.

"I don't see why you'd want to. You'd be killing children and putting your own life at risk, all for the entertainment of lazy aristocrats in the Capitol. Sure you'd get money, but I don't think its worth throwing your life away."

In a calm voice, Cato described his thoughts on the Hunger Games. "Somebody has to. If it's not a Career, than the tributes would probably be someone too weak or too young or too timid to get out of the games alive. I personally always felt that if someone had to carry the risks, it might as well be someone who is prepared to handle it. This is at least part of the reason why being a Career in District 2 is considered meritorious. The rest of the glory and pride is probably because Victors bring free food to their Districts, and many have been known to be quite philanthropic with their winnings."

This gave a Katniss much different impression of Careers than she originally had. Cato's description of his mindset is in no way at all the mindset of a greedy thug who is willing to slit throats in exchange for a mansion and some gold.

However, this talk of sacrifice only made Katniss hate the system of the Hunger Games more. Katniss felt that, even if willing, people like Cato do not deserve to be lined up at the sacrificial alter. Katniss felt that Cato doesn't deserve to die any more than Prim does; in fact she felt that no child should be forced to fight and possibly die in payment to a debt that predates their birth.

"Its not fair. Nobody should have to make this type of sacrifice."

Cato's only response was a sigh. He wrapped his arm around Katniss, holding her close to him. He had never thought that it was possible for the world to be different than it was, and his history lessons had only made him aware of how it was not perfect. While holding close to eachother, Katniss and Cato pondered what would happen to them once they returned home.

Together, the Career and the Huntress listened to the rain.


	46. Chapter 46:Final push

An old wooden longboat rocks back and forth as its five oarsmen row it across Lake Ontario. Thought the longboat had a sail, they could not use it because the wind was against them today.

Earlier that day, the five companions met Kootenay Bonnyville's father. Miller Bonnyville was an old fisherman. Unlike his son, he was not talkative and when he did talk it was short and curt. This is justified considering how he was an old man who still had to work. District 12 teaches that old people are wise; when Katniss asked Miller how he acquired his longevity, he replied that the fish he ate could not hurt him like a bear or a deer could.

While they were rowing the boat, the distant shore on the horizon only became marginally closer. The rowing was exhaustive, so every thirty minutes one of the five oarsmen were allowed to take a break from rowing.

Dragomir was allowed to fish with a crude fishing rod he made with some string and a stick. He was not able to catch anything, but watching the water move around the boat was enough to keep him distracted the whole way.

As they kept rowing, their hands became red and sore. It was difficult. Eventually, they finally made it across the lake. Cato and Senior Bonnyville had to clime out to push the longboat into the beach to anchor it.

Once they were on shore, they decided to take a break. Miller Bonnyville took this time to cook dinner for his guests; it is disrespectful to let guests go hungry. He had a string of six fish that he caught that morning, so he gutted them and cooked the fish meat over a fire.

The rest of them sat on the gravely beach and rested.

After a dinner of fish, they gave Senior Bonnyville some cans of food, thanked him for his help, and pushed his longboat back into the water. He sailed back to the middle of the lake, and he fished.

The five companions walked through the forest to the south of the lake, confident that there was no possible way the soldiers back at District 13 would be able to find them now.

As they walked, it became darker. They eventually found a quiet place to set up camp.

The next morning they walked all day. And the morning after that. It was exhaustive, but they kept pushing forward.

Eventually, they found a mine. This meant they were at the very edge of District 12.

However, they had no time to react to this, as for peacekeeper trucks drove up to them.


	47. Chapter 47: Big news

The peacekeepers piled out of their vehicles and surrounded the weary travelers. Their white uniforms were of a new style, with helmets that obscured the faces of the wearers.

The peacekeeper commander gave calm instructions. "Put your weapons slowly in the ground, then put your hands in the air."

Katniss looked to Boggs and he nodded, indicating she should comply. They had already practiced what they were going to do.

"We wish to speak with your Headpeacekeeper, we have information that might help him."

"You'll get to speak with him, just place your weapons slowly on the ground." Katniss recognized this voice, it was the voice of someone she knew.

"Purnia?"

When Purnia heard this, she recognized the voice that asked the question. This came as a surprize, considering Katniss had not been seen in over a year.

"Katniss?"

The peacekeeper commander adressed Purnia. "Is something wrong?"

"Sir, that person is the girl who went missing a year ago. I think Thread will want to hear about this."

"I'd better get a damn good explanation as to what the hellfire is going on."

Katniss spoke, "I can explain everything, but first I need to speak to the Headpeacekeeper."

The commander adressed his soldiers. "Collect their weapons, than take them to the Peacekeepers Headquarters."

* * *

><p>Headpeacekeeper Romulus Thread was sitting in his office, looking over paperwork. He was proud of the progress he made.<p>

He had only been in District 12 for nine months, and in that time he felt he was able to turn it from a lawless hive of negligence into a respectable district.

Unemployment was originally at thirty percent when he arrived in District 12, now it is at only four percent. The black market was closed, the brothel was closed, the food rations were arriving on time, the coal quota was exceeded, electricity running every hour of the day, the school was staffed by actual teachers, the orphan home had a better quality of life, and several new construction projects were going on throughout the district.

Though the transition period had been painful, it was not more than he could handle. With the exception of a peacekeeper being crippled and coal miner being lynched as a result of a riot, there was not an exceptionally high amount of bloodshed.

Thread was not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen today, and so was surprised by when a peacekeeper told him that five people dressed in grey and wielding machine guns were seen near one of the mines. This surprise did not go away when he also learned that one of them was identified as a girl that disappeared a year ago.

He personally interviewed all five of them, and was able to patch together quite a story.

When he got back to his office, he called the general staff back in District 2 to explain what he discovered. They told the President. There was much debating what to do witch these five strange people.

While the five companions sat in their cell, Katniss wondered what was going on. She had questions to ask, but none of them had been answered by the new Headpeacekeeper. It was not until Purnia entered her cell that the answers came.


	48. Chapter 48: The sad fate of two friends

When Katniss saw a familiar face, she decided to get her questions answered.

"Purnia, what happened here while I was gone. Are Prim and Mom alright? Where's Gale?"

The Peacekeeper sighed, as this was not going to be easy.

"Katniss, a lot of things changed while you were gone. A lot of things were different-"

Katniss, growing impatient, cut her off. "Just tell me what I want to know."

"Prim is currently in the children's home. From what I heard she is still healthy."

"Why would she be there? What happened to Mom? Gale promised he'd take care of them. What happened to him?!

"Your mother tried to care for Prim, and so did Gale. But they are both dead."

With a few short words, Katniss Everdeen's world fell apart.

She started sobbing, and did not stop. Not when Purnia tried to comfort her, and not when she left but promised to return after her shift ended.

After a few days, when Katniss had stopped crying (or at least was only crying sporadically), Purnia explained how two people who were close to her died.

First, during the transition period of Thread's reforms, food became scarce. In desperation, people turned to crime. Three starving people ambushed Mrs. Everdeen when she was returning home from work in the mines; they demanded food. They were starving and desperate, so when Mrs. Everdeen truthfully said that she had none, the desperation turned to anger and one of the muggers hit her over the head with a lead pipe. The muggers were executed by firing squad a week later when they were caught robbing someone's house and admitted under torture that they were the murderers.

Without parents, Primrose was taken to the children's home where she stayed. Gale brought her food when he could.

After Katniss dissapeared, everybody looked for her. Running away was ruled out due to a lack of any trail. After a month she was presumed dead. When a sixteen year old girl disappears, tensions run high. People became feverish with anger at the thought that somebody with evil intentions could be responsible for this. The people demanded blood, and looked for someone to shed it.

They knew that Katniss was last seen headed to the woods. They also knew that Gale Hawthorne was the only other person who goes to the woods. From there the residents of District 12 filled in the blanks. Combined with the death of Peeta Mellark and Delly Cartwright in the 74th hunger games, the people were maddened with grief.

Unlike Cray, Thread was not willing to throw Gale under the bus without a fair trial. He was locked in the cell block while his case was evaluated. The people grew impatient, and in the dead of night they stormed the jailhouse. Purnia was asleep when his was happening, otherwise she would have tried to stop them.

Darius was guarding it that night, and since he believed Gale to be innocent he would not go down without a fight. He was beaten into a coma, and when he awoke three days later he was told he would never walk again and sent home to District 2 after receiving an honorable discharge.

The mob took Gale out of his cell, broke his arms, tied his hands behind his back, and hung him from a lamppost.

Katniss would never see her friend or her mother again.


	49. Chapter 49: Permanent residence

Romulus Thread stood in a room in front of all five suspects.

The suspects had been searched and allowed to keep things that were deemed non-threatening; this included the backpacks, the canned food, the knife scabbards, and the uniforms. Their guns, knives, and flash drives were confiscated (though Boggs, Aurelius, Cato, and Katniss had all managed to successfully hide about four flash drives each).

Now they stand before the Headpeacekeeper, clad in civilian clothes provided to the by himself, and carrying all their District 13 processions in their backpacks. They had not yet been released.

"I have listened to your stories, and have found that you all carry valuable information. Boggs, step forward."

Luthier Boggs complied.

"You hold valuable intel on the enemy, and we are grateful to you for your willingness to share it with us. Since you held a high military position before your defection, you will be given an equal rank in the Peacekeeper armies as well as a pension and a permanent residence in District 2. As for the rest of you, you will all be rewarded with permission to take up permanent residence in District 2 as well."

Katniss's eyes grew wide, "No, don't!"

"It is for your own protection." Unknown to Thread, it was also so Snowe could keep an eye on the defectors.

Boggs rested his hand on her shoulder as a silent way of saying 'don't worry, I'll take care of things'.

Boggs made one demand. "I will only help you if this woman's sister be allowed to accompany her."

Katniss closed her eyes, aware that this was the extent of what Boggs could do for her. They would just have to do what Thread said for them to do.

Not that it mattered where they stayed; she knew she could never hunt in the woods, or trade in the hob, or walk past the street lamp where Gale's body hung limply and lifelessly from a rope.

Thread felt that one extra girl was no trouble. "Alright, her sister can come."

They were allowed to pick Prim up from the orphanage.

When Katniss walked to the door of the orphanage, it swung open before she could even reach it. Prim came running out, practically jumping into her older sister's arms. To say their reunion was a happy one would be an understatement; recent events meant that it had to be happy to balance out the sadness of news Katniss received and time Prim spent in the orphanage.

Katniss was separated from her sister by one year, sixty three floors, and a million man army of soldiers. Now they were reunited.

Needless to say that they would both have a lot of news to share with each other.


	50. Chapter 50:I love you

They sat in the hovercraft, waiting as it began to take them to District 2.

They were flying in a transport hovercraft. It was big enough to hold ten people, and it had a bathroom and windows. It flew smoothly despite being an older model; from the ground it looked like it was gliding.

From the windows, they could land below. Sometimes they would see the ruins of a city, sometimes they would see a whole district. In the latter cases, the pilot would announce which district they were flying over as well as a fact about that District.

Soon they would be flying over all the Districts between 12 and 2. When they arrived in District 2, Boggs would recieve a position in the Peacekeepers Armed Forces in which he can live in District 2 and collect pensions while giving the Capitol detailed information on his former home.

In a few months, Katniss would give birth to her son.

Boggs, Aurelius, and Dragomir were sitting in the row in front of Katniss, Cato, and Prim. Prim was asleep, her head resting on her big sister's shoulder. Cato sat on Katniss's other side, holding her hand.

He whispered to her, "Are you worried about leaving."

"Kind of. I mean, I know there is nothing left for me there; I am just worried about what life in District 2 will be like."

"Don't worry, its a good place. I have family members who will be nice to you." Though Cato said this, she was still concerned. While he did not think his parents would approve of her, he really did not care; he knew his aunt and cousin would like her.

Cato held her hand in both of his. "My promise still stands: I will protect you and our son no matter what."

"Why?"

Cato looked into Katniss's eyes. "Because I love you."

This left Katniss speachless for a long time. Eventually, she was able to answer him. "I love you too."

They held hands, and waited to return home.


	51. Afterwards

**Authors Note:**

The story is over, but not the series. Now enlightened and armed with ideas of liberty, Katniss and Cato will not be content to resign in tyranny. There will possibly be a rebellion, but this time both sides might have unlikely allies.

Now for credits, which everybody loves.

* * *

><p><strong>Acknowledgments: <strong>

I wouldlike to start by thanking ForFutureRefrence, K-chan's Kisses, Mockingjay61, and sundragons9 for commenting on my story.

I would like to thank sustisama, apollo's-favourite-daughter, speedy964, sakurablossom142, , irishgirl3789, VividEmber, StellarByDesign, Mockingjay61, NadyNorthwind, Jasey913, Finnickxoxo, Darlene87, Centura, and Bellinies for marking this story as their favorite.

I would like to give a special thanks to ForFutureRefrence, as he has been a valued support for me in both this project and in my previous projects.

* * *

><p><strong>Reasons for writing this story:<strong>

I wanted to write a story demonstrating that the government of District 13 are not 'good guys', life there would be a living hell. I also wanted to shed some light on what it might have been like before the pox outbreak.

I also wanted to show that Katniss and Cato had a lot in common, and under the right conditions they might have been in the same side.

I just want to say this one last time: Communism does not work. Every time it gets into power, it uses violence and terror to do so and to stay in power. When a communist state inevitably collapses, it leaves behind a failed state and a mountain of corpses. This pattern of murder and terror has been followed by every communist state without exception, and it has not worked a single time. Even in theory, it demands violent murder and the forfeiture of basic human rights. Communism has resulted in the death of 100 million people, and the human race needs to abandon this bad idea.

Likewise, Eugenics is also blight on human society. It has resulted in countless death and untold infringement of human rights. Just because someone has a disability or will have to work harder or will need extra help does not change the fact that they deserve to be treated like humans.

Now that that is out of the way, it is time for the next part.

* * *

><p>I have every intention of writing a sequel. It will be called 'A Nation Divided', and anyone who liked this story will like the sequel. I also intend to write a few spin-off stories, which will also be good.<p> 


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